Historical Photographs of Nurses in the Digital Collections
Throughout history, nurses have not only provided care for individual patients, but they have advanced the fields of medicine and public health through innovation, study, and advocacy. They are routinely rated as the profession with the highest honesty and ethics and their dedication and value has been even more apparent during the crisis of the pandemic.
Below are a selection of photographs from The New York Public Library's Digital Collections showing pioneering nurses and nurses at work in the field.
Rural health nurse, upstate New York.
Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine. NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID: 416555
"Tain't-so-bad!" The school nurse in New York City kindergarten, 1920.
Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine. NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID: 464334
A visiting nurse showing Jewish mother how to care for the baby, East Side, New York, 1925
Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine. NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID: 464301
Group portrait of Lincoln School nurses, 1915. Lincoln was the first nursing school for African Americans in New York City.
NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID: 1818738
Maternity ward, Lincoln Hospital and Home, 1929.
NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID: 1818739
Nurses bathing babies, 1913.
NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID: 1536545
Mary Eliza Mahoney. In 1879, Mahoney became the first African American woman to earn a professional nursing license. In 1908, she co-founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN) which focused on equality of African American nurses.
Nurses bidding goodbye to convalescent soldier. World War I.
NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID: 437765
Nurse of Agricultural Workers' Health and Medical Association attends sick migrant woman while awaiting doctor. Tulare County, California. Farm Security Administration (FSA) camp for migratory agricultural workers at Farmersville.1939.
Photo by Dorothea Lange. NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID: 57805206
Nurse with group of farm workers as she makes her calls in the afternoon. FSA (Farm Security Administration) migratory labor camp mobile unit. Wilder, Idaho, 1941.
Photo by Lee Russell. NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID: 58110782
Captain Mary L. Petty, Chief Nurse (left) and 2nd Lieutenant Olive Bishop (right) at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Petty was the first Black member of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps to achieve the rank of captain.
NYPL Digital Collections, Image ID: 1260347
Carolyn Innes (left) founded the Gay Nurses' Alliance (GNA) with David Waldron in 1973. It was the first organization for gay, lesbian, and bisexual nurses. Jeri Dilno (right) designed the GNA newsletter, The Signal.
Photo by Kay Tobin, 1974.