'Plunket plus common sense': women and the Plunket Society, 1940 - 1960

Abstract

This thesis examines the involvement of women in the Plunket Society between 1940 and 1960. Women's involvement in the Society has often been submerged in discussions of the Plunket Society. An emphasis on the writings of Truby King has taken much of the focus away from the women of the Society who were involved in it on a day to day level. This thesis examines in turn the relationship between the Society and women as mothers, committee members, nurses, administrators and professionals. At the beginning of the period Plunket Nurses saw 78 per cent of European babies; by the end of the period this number had risen to almost 90 per cent. This thesis attempts to explain how and why the Society achieved such an exceptional coverage during this period. The thesis has looked at the Society primarily through the eyes of the women involved with it, and uses both oral history and contemporary comment to examine how the Society worked and the impact that it had on women's lives, families and communities. This thesis will argue that women had agency in the way they experienced the Society: mothers negotiated the messages they received from the Plunket Society; committee members, nurses and the women at the national level of the organisation changing and altering the Society and the message that it delivered to those mothers. This thesis will argue that the Plunket Society was not something 'done to', or imposed on, women. Women did not simply react, enthusiastically or otherwise, to the institution of Plunket, they were the Plunket Society.