Rural visiting nurse Elizabeth McPhee, Scotland, 1926
Nurses and nursing have been frequent subjects of postcards for over 100 years. The Zwerdling Postcard Collection, part of the History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine includes over 2,500 postcards.
This unique archive consists of postcards with images of nurses and the nursing profession from around the world, produced between 1893 and 2011. The postcard is a widespread art form influenced by popular ideas about social and cultural life. Nurses and nursing have been the frequent subjects of postcards for over one hundred years.
A reproduction of Army Nurse Corps recruitment poster for WWII, 2001
National Library of Medicine.
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. Visit the online exhibition at the National Library of Medicine website.
Related articles in HCS-Manguinhos:
La enfermería en la Argentina Maximiliano Fiquepron comenta el libro “La Salud Pública y la Enfermería en la Argentina“, coordinado por Carolina Biernat, Juan Manuel Cerdá y Karina Ramacciotti.
La salud pública y la enfermería en la Argentina El libro de Karina Ramacciotti, Carolina Biernart y Juan Manuel Cerdá reúne los principales debates en la historia social de la salud y la enfermedad en Argentina.
Médicos, enfermeras y pacientes: entre la incertidumbre y las carencias en tiempo de COVID-19 en México “La intensificación de la precariedad e inequidad del sector salud a lo largo de 2019, cuyos orígenes se ubican en las reformas neoliberales iniciadas en la década de 1980, han provocado que México sea uno de los países con el menor grado de inversión en el sector salud a nivel internacional.” La investigadora Claudia Agostoni, de la UNAN reflexiona sobre los problemas crónicos del sistema de salud de Mexico en el enfrentamiento a la Covid-19.
Enfermeras en Chile: profesionalización y cuidado sanitario El sitio web del proyecto Memoria Chilena de la Biblioteca Nacional de Chile reúne documentos y imágenes sobre la historia de la enfermería en el país entre 1906 y 1950.
