Descriptive Summary

Please also see our web exhibit featuring the Milio Collection.

Repository: University of Virginia School of Nursing, Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry

Title: Nancy Milio Collection
Physical Characteristics: 1.1 linear feet; 3 boxes

Language: English

Collector: Nancy Milio.

Biographical Information

Nancy Milio grew up in the Kercheval neighborhood during World War Two, when the community was populated by southern European immigrants and their children. These white residents began moving to the Detroit suburbs after the war, and by the early 1960s, the neighborhood had become lower-income and African American, with declining housing stock, limited public services, and few employment opportunities.

At exactly this moment, in 1960, Milio graduated from Detroit's Wayne State University with a B.S. in Nursing and an abiding concern for the delivery of health care services to underprivileged communities. She worked with the Detroit Visiting Nurse Association as a staff nurse and field teacher, and began to look for ways to comprehend the health and social problems afflicting poor communities. She investigated methods likely to effect positive changes in public health among ghetto populations. Milio completed a Master's degree in Sociology from Wayne State in 1965, writing about the class basis of maternity health standards. This consciousness underlay her work to establish the Kercheval center as a community-based institution shaped and directed by the needs and aspirations of the people it was to serve. After leaving the center in 1969, Milio earned a doctorate in Sociology from Yale University in 1970, and embarked on an academic career, becoming a professor of Nursing and of Health Policy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Dr. Milio joined the UNC School of Nursing faculty in 1976 and that of the School of Public Health in 1977.

The materials contained here relative to the Mom and Tots Neighborhood Center represent Milio's earliest professional steps in her long and distinguished career in public health policy. 9226 Kercheval was only the first of twelve books to her credit, three of which have received the American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award. She has contributed chapters to an abundance of scholarly monographs, published extensively in a wide range of academic journals, and has served as a research fellow and visiting professor in numerous university public health programs around the world.

Scope and Content

The Nancy Milio Collection contains manuscript and published materials principally related to the organization and operation of the Mom and Tots Neighborhood Center, which Milio established in southeast Detroit, Michigan in 1966. Most important are a series of nine "field notebooks," or diaries kept by Professor Milio between 1965 and 1968. These notebooks comprise a near daily record of Milio's activities, meetings, interactions, conversations, assessments, and impressions of the various individuals and conditions she encountered as a public health nurse and community organizer in the Kercheval and McClellan district of Detroit, a low-income, African American neighborhood. Of particular significance are the insights Milio gained regarding race relations and identity formation, and the critical importance of collaborative strategies to the successful organization of a truly neighborhood-based women's health service and day care facility.

Dr. Milio wrote of her experiences with the Mom and Tots Neighborhood Center in the book: 9226 Kercheval: The Storefront That Did Not Burn, published in 1970. Correspondence and various news articles concern the book, as well as the operations and funding of Center, which was left untouched in the civil disturbances of 1967, when many of the Kercheval buildings were burned. Manuscript versions of other professional papers and presentations, reprints of journal articles and book chapters, news stories concerning Milio herself, photographs, and an audio cassette interview with Milio recorded in 1994 complete the collection.

Additions to the Milio Collection in 2014 comprise almost entirely copies or reprints of publications by Milio. The items conserved here are rare or difficult to access through standard library databases; for a full inventory of Milio's publications, researchers are advised to consult Milio's curriculum vitae, filed in box 01, folder 001 of this collection. A single folder of the additions contains a historic newspaper collection, assembled by Milio to complement her journal entries.

Series Description

Arrangement

The Nancy Milio Collection is organized by subject, with materials grouped together by type and ordered chronologically within each folder. The 2014 additions to the collection are contained in box 03. These writings by Milio are organized alphabetically by type – book chapters, book reviews, journal articles, etc. Arrangement within type is chronological.

Contents List
CURRICULUM VITAE - NANCY MILIO, PH.D.
2004/05, 2013/07 Box-Folder: 01-001

NEWS ARTICLES CONCERNING THE MOM AND TOTS NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER
1966/12/04-1976/02/22 Box-Folder: 01-002

NEWSLETTER: "THE SOUNDS OF MOMS AND TOTS" (TWO ISSUES), AND OTHER MATERIALS (APPOINTMENT CARD AND OUTLINE OF SERVICES) FROM THE MOM AND TOTS NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER
1968/04-1973/12 Box-Folder: 01-003

9226 KERCHEVAL: THE STOREFRONT THAT DID NOT BURN - CORRESPONDENCE AND READERS' COMMENTS CONCERNING THE MANUSCRIPT AND PUBLICATION
1968/09/23-1970/03/17 Box-Folder: 01-004

9226 KERCHEVAL: THE STOREFRONT THAT DID NOT BURN - ANNOUNCEMENTS AND BOOK REVIEWS
1970/03/11-2001/05-06, N.D. Box-Folder: 01-005

NEWS ARTICLES CONCERNING NANCY MILIO, PH.D.
1967/04/21-1975/03/05 Box-Folder: 01-006

PAPERS-MANUSCRIPTS: NANCY MILIO, PH.D.
1965-1975, N.D. Box-Folder: 01-007

REPRINTS: NANCY MILIO, PH.D.
1966/09-1975 Box-Folder: 01-008

PHOTOGRAPHS
1966/04-1994/12 Box-Folder: 01-009

FIELD NOTEBOOK NUMBER 1
1965/03-1966/07/20 Box-Folder: 02-001

FIELD NOTEBOOK NUMBER 2
1966/07/20-1966/12/09 Box-Folder: 02-002

FIELD NOTEBOOK NUMBER 3
1966/12/12-1967/02/16 Box-Folder: 02-003

FIELD NOTEBOOK NUMBER 4
1967/02/17-1967/04/18 Box-Folder: 02-004

FIELD NOTEBOOK NUMBER 5
1967/04/18-1967/07/11 Box-Folder: 02-005

FIELD NOTEBOOK NUMBER 6
1967/07/11-1967/10/24 Box-Folder: 02-006

FIELD NOTEBOOK NUMBER 7
1967/10/27-1967/11/22 Box-Folder: 02-007

FIELD NOTEBOOK NUMBER 8
1967/11/24-1968/02/01 Box-Folder: 02-008

FIELD NOTEBOOK NUMBER 9
1968/02/02-1968/06/19 Box-Folder: 02-009

INTERVIEW WITH NANCY MILIO BY DENISE DOOLING (TWO CASSETTE TAPES)
1994/10/26 Box-Folder: 02-010

2013 NURSING HISTORY FORUM, PROGRAM AND DIGITAL IMAGES (CD)
2013/01/29 Box-Folder: 02-010

NANCY MILIO VIDEO STATEMENT, VIDEO 001 (ONE DVD)
2015/01/22 Box-Folder: 02-010

MILIO, AUTHOR: BOOK CHAPTERS
1982-2002 Box-Folder: 03-001

MILIO, AUTHOR: BOOK REVIEWS
1976-1989 Box-Folder: 03-002

MILIO, AUTHOR: JOURNAL ARTICLES
1963-1999 Box-Folder: 03-003

MILIO, AUTHOR: MISCELLANEOUS WRITING
1967-1995 Box-Folder: 03-004

MILIO, AUTHOR: PRESENTATIONS/PROCEEDINGS, BY DATE OF TALK
1976-1990 Box-Folder: 03-005

MILIO, AUTHOR: PRESENTATIONS/PROCEEDINGS, BY DATE OF TALK
1991-1997 Box-Folder: 03-006

MILIO, AUTHOR: REPORTS AND GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS
1980-1986 Box-Folder: 03-007

MILIO, AUTHOR: STUDENT ESSAYS, NOTES
1952-56, n.d. Box-Folder: 03-008

MILIO, AUTHOR: UNPUBLISHED PAPERS
1976-1993 Box-Folder: 03-009

PUBLICATIONS: HISTORIC NEWSPAPER ARTICLE COLLECTION, TO COMPLEMENT MILIO JOURNAL ENTRIES
1944-1995 Box-Folder: 03-010

 

 

 

Notes

Access
No Restrictions

Use Restrictions
No Restrictions

Preferred Citation
University of Virginia School of Nursing, Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, Nancy Milio Collection

Processing Information
Processed by Henry K. Sharp in 2011. Additions processed by Henry K. Sharp in 2014.

Milio Collection