Florence Nightingale

Nurses fill a vital role in caring for patients in any institutional setting, and today’s nurses are trained, skilled, and professional. That was not always the case. In the late 1800s, attendants were typically male, and often incompetent or uncaring. Florence Nightingale set the bar higher for nursing when she went to Crimea in 1854, but twenty years later, medical men were still lamenting the lack of qualified and willing people to help the insane.

One problem the profession faced was a lack of systematic instruction for attendants or nurses. Except for the religious orders, there were no permanent schools to train people for nursing even as late as 1880. Some medical superintendents tried giving lectures on nursing care, but they were often attended by just a handful of people. Alienists (early psychiatrists) understood that they could help the situation by attracting women to nursing.

Stewards and Nurses, Brooklyn Navy Yard Hospital, Detroit circa 1890-1901

Group of Male Attendants, 1890s, Spring Grove Hospital

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