Monochrome photograph of nineteen women in white nursing uniforms with dark capes posing for a graduation photo at the Kingston General Hospital; women are standing outside at the bottom of the entrance staircase with snow at their feet and are facing the camera while under a balcony with white pos…
Monochrome photograph of nineteen women in white nursing uniforms with dark capes posing for a graduation photo at the Kingston General Hospital; women are standing outside at the bottom of the entrance staircase with snow at their feet and are facing the camera while under a balcony with white posts and railings; image is surrounded by narrow white border; on the back of the photograph are diamond symbols with the word "SELO" inside the diamonds and also the number "51" on the back of the photograph in the top right corner.
Number Of Parts
1
Provenance
The photograph originally belonged to Myrtle (Eakin) McKendry, the mother of Richard McKendry and a graduate of the Kingston General Hospital School of Nursing Class of 1942.
Image is evenly faded, but only slightly; body of photograph is slightly warped as the sides of the image raise up; some stains on the back which darken the colour.
Copy Type
original
Reference Types
Website
Article
Reference Comments
Kingston Health Sciences Centre website, "KGH School of Nursing," (https://kingstonhsc.ca/kgh-school-nursing)
Mallory Warner, “Where is the missing piece of lining in this U.S. Navy nurse's cape?,” April 5, 2017. National Museum of American History, https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/us-navy-nurses-cape
Research Facts
The first official graduating class of the Kingston General Hospital School of Nursing was in 1888; the school was created in order to educate nurses as the demand for them increased, as well as providing a labour force to the hospital. When the first nurses graduated, they were given a certificate of completion, twenty five dollars, and a nursing medal. Over the years, nurses were sometimes given pins and/or rings or other memorabilia to commemorate their graduation from the school.
Nurses’ capes were an important part of the nurse’s uniform, and became a symbol of nursing and care in their own right outside of the rest of the uniform. The Red Cross, like Kingston General Hospital, lined the inside of their nurses’ capes with red, and the symbol of the red lined cape was used in recruiting posters for nurses during World War I, making the nurse look heroic. Nurses serving with Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War also wore woollen cloaks, predecessors of the nursing cape. For many women, the cape was part of their identity as nurses.