Posted 10 months ago
Militarist
(289 items)
Nursing School Pins Being Worn
I have collected photos of medals, badges and pins being worn for many years. In all those years I have only found two pictures of nurses wearing their school pins. Best of all I also have examples in my collection of the same pin types being worn. The cross shaped pin is from Milwaukee's Passavant Hospital dated 1928. The round pin is from the Mercy Hospital Training School of Janesville, Wisconsin, dated 1942. Both are gold as is usually the case until after WWII when gold plated pins became more common.
I’m a retired Registered Nurse. These pictures bring back vivid memories of wearing the white nurses’ cap….keeping them in place was accomplished by bobby -pinning a cotton ball to the top of your head, then bobby-pinning the cap to the cotton ball. Then a bobby-pin to each side and the thing would stay perfectly perched atop your head for your entire shift.
You could identify what school a nurse had attended by the style of the cap. After graduation, you got to apply a ribbon to your cap (usually narrow black velvet ribbon).
Here’s a tidbit of probably little-known information: the ribbon could be applied with KY Jelly. We used it like glue. When the KY dried, the ribbon would be so securely glued to the cap, it would not come off.
Thank goodness nurses’ caps fell out of favor- they made your head sore, messed up your hair, and they could get incredibly dirty.
Thanks for posting these pictures and letting me go strolling down Memory Lane. :^)
Thanks WS, glad to hear it!