Louisa May Alcott and Hospital Sketches: An innovative approach to gender and nursing professionalization.

Through Alcott's words, we understand the transition of nursing care as a gradual extension of the middle-class woman's domestic role and a progressive definition of nurses' identity. In particular, we highlight how certain professional nursing nuances which appear in the text are compatible with the gradual extension of the boundaries of women's domesticity. Furthermore, Alcott's use of literary devices reveals the delicate balance between women's domestic role and some new nursing professional features, which anticipates nursing professionalization.