An Officer and a Lady

Linda J. Quiney, University of British Columbia:
With Toman’s study, we have the first critical historical analysis of Second World War nursing sisters. Toman’s purpose is to ‘shift the analysis away from stereotypical portrayals as angels and heroines’, to examine the nursing sisters in the ‘masculine military domain’ of Canadian wartime hospitals overseas. […] Toman fully achieves her goal, providing an interplay between ‘gender, war, and medical technology’, drawing on a wide range of oral and official evidence, including twenty-five personal interviews with veteran nursing sisters, and another thirty gleaned from archival collections across Canada, in addition to other personal and published sources. […] The photographs distributed throughout give faces to the voices, and illustrate both the medical and human drama of the war.

Susan L. Smith, author of Japanese American Midwives: Culture, Community, and Health Politics, 1880-1950:
An Officer and a Lady is beautifully written and a real pleasure to read. It asks all the important questions about identity and representation, women's experiences, the meanings of gender, the role of nursing, and the impact of militarization and war. After reading each chapter, I couldn’t wait to continue to the next.

Christina Bates, co-editor of On All Frontiers: Four Centuries of Nursing in Canada:
An unromanticized, nuanced, and complex book. Based on revealing first-hand accounts from the nurses themselves, as well as published memoirs, and military documents, Toman’s analysis of the ways in which nursing culture came into conflict with military culture over medical treatment and technology is brilliant. An Officer and a Lady is both pioneering scholarship and a well-told story.