Exhibition credits nurses for opening eyes to domestic violence

“Confronting Violence: Improving Women’s Lives,” a traveling exhibition from the National Library of Medicine, tells the story of nurses who worked to bring domestic violence out of the shadows, beginning in the late 1970s.

The six banners located in the atrium of Cushwa Hall are on display now throughout October, which is also Domestic Violence Awareness month. The exhibition, which closes Nov. 2, is made possible for all to view at no charge by the YSU Melnick Medical Museum.

Melnick Curator Cassie Nespor explains that nurses were in a unique position to recognize and address the medical and emotional needs of battered women. By the mid-1980s, the public health community identified domestic violence as a pressing health issue.

Part of the exhibition description reads, “With passion and persistence, nurses worked to reform a medical profession that largely dismissed or completely failed to acknowledge violence against women as a serious health issue.”

The traveling exhibition explores images, manuscripts and records that tell the stories of the nurses who witnessed the effects of domestic violence and campaigned for change.

For more information on the Melnick Medical Museum at YSU, visit https://maag.ysu.edu/melnickhome.

Photo cutline: Nurses and women’s rights advocates called attention to family violence and rallied for reform during the mid-19th century.