Theatrical entertainments and kind words: nursing the insane in Western North Carolina, 1882–1907

Accessible summary•  At the end of the 19th century, US asylum superintendents viewed psychiatric nursing education among the most important needs at state and private hospitals. Well‐trained nurses were critical to successful implementation of moral therapy, the predominant therapeutic approach of the time. •  Dr Patrick Murphy, superintendent of the State Hospital at Morganton (a rural western North Carolina town), began a nurse training school in 1895. The school trained a corps of nurses who were the first in their families to enter a work in health care, nearly all of their fathers were farmers and their mothers kept house. •  The nurses at the State Hospital at Morganton played a key role in shaping the public image about asylum care. They not only treated patients at the hospital, but also worked as private nurses in the community and as ‘nerve’ nurses at boarding homes and resort towns nearby. These nurses demonstrated laudable achievements, and were hired by other asylum superintendents who were struggling to implement nursing reforms in their hospitals.Abstract This paper argues that at the turn of the 19th century, nurses at the State Hospital in Morganton, North Carolina (now called Broughton Hospital) played critical roles in successfully implementing the best‐known therapeutic methods of the time. They were also instrumental in developing the hospital's visibility and acceptance in rural western North Carolina. When the Hospital established its first nurse training school in 1895, this corps of first‐generation western North Carolinians practising institutional nursing was highly esteemed in their field. Their skills not only served the community outside of the Hospital's walls, but were also sought out by other private and state asylums.