This week I came across a new-to-me old photo on the Library of Congress website, one titled "Nurses at tea." Taken sometime between 1915 and 1920, this photograph shows the Metropolitan Hospital Training School for Nurses on Blackwell's Island (now Roosevelt Island) in New York City.
The images I find on the LOC website sometimes seem rather random. This one is part of the George Grantham Bain Collection and represents one of the country's earliest news picture agencies, which I guess must have been sort of like the Associated Press today.
Are any of you nurses? I'm not, but that was my declared major when I entered college many moons ago, so in another life and another place, this might have been me! (Just curious, did any of YOU end up doing something very different from what you had planned in life?)
My aunt was a nurse, and during her early education in 1928 at the Pottstown Hospital Training School, one of the "skills" she was taught was how to serve tea using a silver tea service. Upon graduation, nurses at this time often accepted private duty positions in the homes of the wealthy and were expected to know the proper method of serving tea.
ReplyDeleteI am a nurse and love any historical articles or pictures about the profession. These were the days when nurses also scrubbed down walls and built fires in addition to patient care. I started college as a Journalism major but switched to nursing after a series of life experiences. Great picture!
ReplyDeleteI I love this picture. One of my daughters will graduate from nursing school next spring, and yes, I never dreamed I'd work in a church office for over 25 years, but I love my job and I'm happy that's where God led me.
ReplyDeleteLove it! Love all of your LOC photos.
ReplyDeleteWhat I wanted to do my family would not have approved of; so I waited until I was 40 to go back to school to do what I wanted. Love this photo.
ReplyDelete#1 daughter and one of her twin daughters are nurses and they both like to drink tea. I should send them your photo for a laugh.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to show this to my Nana. She was a nurse. And yes I did end up doing something different than what I had planned.
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