Pictures of Nursing: An NLM Online Exhibition
The National Library of Medicine’s, (NLM) History of Medicine Division is featuring an online exhibit entitled “Pictures of Nursing“. Pictures of Nursing is an archival collection of 2,588 postcards acquired from Micheal Zwerdling, an American nurse and collector. “The full collection consists of postcards with images of nurses and the nursing profession from around the world, produced between 1893 and 2011.” NLM has divided the collection into several categories: the art of nursing; nursing and respectability; picturing the gender of nursing; picturing nursing as a career; and picturing a women’s mission.
If you have a chance, check out the digital gallery, a selection of over 500 postcards. The cards can be sorted and viewed in a variety of ways, like “topic”. Some of the topics are fascinating:
- Uniforms : interesting caps
- Typecast: saucy: the profession with an undercurrent of sexuality
- Military nursing
- Advertising: from health transportation airlines to a cure-all tonic to a radio program
- and many more
Enjoy!
Jill
