Nursing

The postcard is a fleeting and widespread art form influenced by popular ideas about social and cultural life in addition to fashions in visual style. Nurses and nursing have been the frequent subjects of postcards for over one hundred years. In fact, no other art form has illustrated the nursing profession so profusely using such a variety of artistic styles and images.

These images of nurses and nursing are informed by cultural values; ideas about women, men, and work; and by attitudes toward class, race, and national differences. By documenting the relationship of nursing to significant forces in 20th-century life, such as war and disease, these postcards reveal how nursing was seen during those times.

Pictures of Nursing investigates the hold these images exert on the public imagination—then and now.

“during her evening ward rounds, the famous nurse talks about the lack of medical knowledge in the Crimean field hospital in which she's working. She describes the risk of infection to the patients, and her hopes for developing modern nursing methods that might save more lives in the future.”

“This film also deals with certain themes that are important to nurses everywhere in the world, gender roles, war, discrimination, and labour struggle. Also pay attention to the complex relationship between medicine and nursing. The Rise of the Training Schools.”

The American Association for the History of Nursing (AAHN) is a professional organization open to everyone interested in the history of nursing.

The Museum of Nursing History, Inc. is committed to the preservation and exhibition of historical nursing memorabilia and to the education of the nursing community as well as the general public about nursing’s past.

The history of nursing and nurses from PubMed. Not comprehensive. Various filters may be added to refine the results.

The history of nursing and nurses in CINAHL Complete via EBSCOHost. Various filters may be added to refine the results. Not comprehensive.

Use the link above to access CINAHL. Enter the following in the top search box: (MM "History of Nursing") OR (MM "Nurses+/HI") OR (MM "Midwives+/HI") OR TI ((nurs* OR midwife OR midwives) AND (history OR historical))