Photographic Exhibits

19th Century Hospital Images

These images provide outstanding visual documentation of hospital design, hospital equipment, patient care, operating room procedure, and life on and off the wards over the last four decades of the 19th century - a period when the American public's perception of the hospital changed from a place where persons with contagious diseases were isolated or the poor were to sent die, to a place where persons of all classes could take advantage of the most recent developments in surgical technique, laboratory diagnosis, and scientifically based medical care.

This unique collection is stored in "UR Research," a service of the University of Rochester Libraries. The UR Research system was built using DSpace, a software platform jointly developed by Hewlett-Packard Company and MIT. The University of Rochester Libraries use UR Research as a long-term storage system for digital works; it is a digital repository designed to capture, store, index, distribute, and preserve the intellectual output of a university’s faculty in digital formats.

The Many Faces of Nursing
Photographic Images from the Edward G. Miner Library, 1890-1965

The present online exhibit displays images of nurses photographed over a period of seventy-five years. They depict nurses at work under war-time conditions, nurses in the wards 19th-century New York hospitals, student nurses in training situations, images of young women in casual moments before the camera, etc.

All these images are from the photographic collection of the Rare Books & Manuscripts section of the Edward G. Miner Library. Each is an important historical document that informs the nursing historian, the military historian, the historian of hospital care, etc. many things about their field. These images have other layers. Each has an inherent aesthetic component that makes them objects of photographic art; and most have a compelling human interest that both enhances and transcends their historical context.

These images represent but a small portion of the Miner Library's photographic collection pertaining to nursing and related subjects. This exhibit is for us a pilot project, aiding us to determine the requirements of an image database that would eventually encompass the whole of our photographic collection. At the same time, it makes a small selection of these interesting images available to a much broader public than was previously possible.

Photographic copies of these images may be ordered at cost. For uses other than private study, research, or teaching (that is, commercial, publication, broadcast, and anything else that doesn't fall under fair use, contact the curator (585-275-8827), in advance for permission to reproduce and the appropriate acknowledgment.

It is the responsibility of anyone using the site, or ordering reproductions, to ensure that the use of this material is in compliance with the U.S. Copyright law. For more information on copyright contact the U.S. Copyright Office at 202-707-5959 . All of the images are watermarked. The watermark permits viewing of images without obscuring large areas.

Bellevue Hospital. Outpatient office, Bellevue Hospital, New York, 1890s.	Nurses assisting at osteotomy for genu-valgum, Bellevue Hospital, New York, 1890s.	Children's ward at the New York Hospital, 1890s.
Nursing students in the New York Hospital's surgical theatre, 1890s.	Students on the roof of nursing school residence, the New York Hospital, 1890s.	Public health nursing, upstate New York, 1920s. Lewis Hine, photographer.
University of Rochester School of Nursing. Class of 1928.	Amputating the leg of a wounded soldier at the Military Reserve Hospital, Hiroshima, Russo-Japanese War, 1905.	Undated photograph of the Women's Medical Ward, The German Hospital, Philadelphia.
Nurse with nursing students, Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester, N.Y., early 1960s.	University of Rochester School of Nursing. Class of 1928. Student's practice room in the nurses' dormitory.	University of Rochester School of Nursing. Class of 1928. Bedmaking class.
Oxygen therapy at Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester, N.Y., 1950s.	Pediatric care at Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester, N.Y.	Newborn at Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester, N.Y.
Patient care at Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester, N.Y., 1949. Photo by William Rittase, Philadelphia.	University of Rochester School of Nursing. Student nurse instructing new mother, 1954.	University of Rochester School of Nursing. Student instruction, ca. 1950.
Iron lung, Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester, N.Y., 1950s. Photo by Gerda Peterich.	Babies shown daily. Strong Memorial Hospital, Rochester, N.Y., ca. 1950.	A military hospital near Antwerp, Belgium, ca. 1916.
Japanese nurses attending wounded Russian officer during the Russo-Japanese War, 1905.	Patients at the J.N. Adam Memorial Hospital, a tuberculosis sanitarium south of Buffalo, N.Y., 1920s.	Student nurses at the Buffalo City Hospital School of Nursing, 1908.
Student nurses practice surgical procedure at the Buffalo City Hospital School of Nursing, 1908.	Student residence of the Buffalo City Hospital School of Nursing, 1908.