Starched white fabric nurse's cap with six pleats held together with metal straight pins and double turned up front (a); black velvet ribbon pinned at both ends to sit along top edge (b); inside double front fold is a metal straight pin to hold a metal bobby pin style hair pin (c).
Starched white fabric nurse's cap with six pleats held together with metal straight pins and double turned up front (a); black velvet ribbon pinned at both ends to sit along top edge (b); inside double front fold is a metal straight pin to hold a metal bobby pin style hair pin (c).
Number Of Parts
3
Part Names
a- cap - Size: Length 16.0 cm x Width 10.1 cm x Depth 8.4 cm
b - ribbon - Size: Length 41.0 cm x Width 0.80 cm x Depth 0.02 cm
c - hair pin - SIze: Length 5.0 cm x Width 0.01 cm x Depth 0.03 cm
Provenance
Owned by donor, Christine Brown, Kingston General Hospital School of Nursing, Class of 1971.
Dates
1967
1971
circa 1967-1971
Date Remarks
Donor's graduation date.
Material
fabric: cream, black
metal: silver, brown
Permanent Location
Storage Room 0007
0007 Closet C
Temporary Location
Exhibit: "For Service to Humanity: Nursing Education at Kingston General Hospital" Nov 13, 2008.
Condition Remarks
Pins are rusty leaving marks; fabric is yellowed.
Copy Type
Original
Reference Types
Person
Websites
Reference Comments
Christine Brown
Canadian Museum of History, "Symbol of a Profession: One Hundred Years of Nurses' Caps," https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/hist/infirm/inint01e.html
"For Service to Humanity: Nursing Education at Kingston General Hospital," Museum of Health Care. https://www.museumofhealthcare.ca/explore/exhibitions/forservicetohumanity.html
Research Facts
Donor received this cap during nurse's training at Kingston General Hospital School of Nursing, Class of 1971.
Throughout the twentieth century, nurses' uniforms changed, in particular with the rising of hemlines. The nurse's uniform was generally white, and Kingston General Hospital uniforms were once known for "turkey red" hemlines. Different levels of nursing education had different uniforms, in particular different caps, as graduate nurses had black bands on their caps to indicate their level of education.
Nurses' caps in Canada changed and evolved over the years, with caps resembling a nun's coif used by military Nursing Sisters and as a reminder of Roman Catholic nursing tradition. Older nurses' caps were styled similarly to caps that female domestic servants wore, and were made to cover the head and keep hair neat. These evolved into highly starched symbolic nurses' caps which perched on the top or near the back of the head. Nurses' caps were white, and usually cut from a flat pattern that could be folded and unfolded for starching and cleaning. The nurse's cap began to disappear in the 1970s as nursing education moved from hospitals to colleges and nurses wanted to be identified more closely with doctors and other medical professionals who wore no uniform.