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by Ginger T. Manley (Editor)
Aprons-that most humble of garments-are represented in all walks of life but none more so than in the history of nursing and in the lives of mid-1950's American women. When a trove of vintage domestic aprons from a Tennessee farmhouse turned up in some musty boxes of linens, forty-nine registered nurses adopted them and, inspired by their adopted aprons, created submissions for this book. At about the same time these nurses learned about a humanitarian outreach program, Burning Bush, Inc., a microcredit organization established by a former nursing instructor to assist a remote area of Kenya. In response, the nurses formed The Nurses' Apron Partnership (TNAP), a grassroots organization dedicated to helping nurses provide services they might not otherwise be able to provide. TNAP has designated all royalties from this book to be donated to Burning Bush, Inc., to support microcredit educational loans for the Mt. Kenya cluster of Private Nurse Practitioners, a group which includes more than 70 nurses. These Kenyan registered nurses are struggling to provide the majority of maternity and primary care in their region, sometimes against great odds, one of which is the need for advanced education. The first nurse from this group to be funded by a microcredit loan began her graduate study in May, 2009 in the care of HIV/AIDS. This anthology is divided into four sections: Aprons as Symbols of Healing, Aprons as Symbols of Identity and Service, Aprons as Symbols of Comfort, and Aprons as Symbols of Imagination and Creativity. Historical text links each section to the creative submissions and to the professionally photographed images of the aprons. This warm, poignant collection of stories and memoir, written in a female voice, connects women worldwide in the rituals and significance of two sometimes invisible but very necessary elements-aprons and nursing. Enjoy!
