History

PERSERVING the HISTORY of NURSING at MGH

A key part of the NAA's mission is to record and maintain the history of nursing at MGH. This includes several initiatives:

MGH School of Nursing Archives

The MGH Archives contains hundreds of years of materials related to the School of Nursing.

The MGH SON Archival Collection is part of the MGH Archives and Special Collections. The archives are stored by MGH and represent a repository of 100’s of years of medical, hospital and nursing materials including documents, photos, and artifacts. It is a vital resource for the Hospital and for historians and is maintained by the MGH archivist.

The NAA History Committee has been actively working in collaboration with the MGH Nursing History Committee, the Russell Museum and the MGH archivist to digitize our collection of materials. This includes sorting, reviewing, cataloguing and preparing material to be digitized. To date, about 50% of our archival content is posted and freely available to historians. Over the past year, over 500 photos have been digitized. The Archive site gets about 500 – 900 “hits” per month, so is a well-used resource.

This work is one of our critical contributions to maintaining the history of nursing at Mass General.

The Archives can be accessed here.

Oral History

In the early 2000’s, the MGH SON Oral History Project began with questionnaires mailed to graduates asking several questions about their experiences as students and their subsequent careers. About 500 questionnaires were returned. Some years later, a project ensued to capture the stories of graduates through video and voice. The project was initially run by Linda Orrell and Karen Wolf. It is now run by Mary Larkin along with other MGH SON graduates. We have over 70 recordings and are working on ways to preserve the various forms of media that have been used over time. This includes transitioning old footage from DVDs and tapes to electronic format, transcribing the text and continuing the quest to interview and collect more stories. Some quotes and photos were used during the 150th anniversary and for the 150th video. Our goal is to prepare transcripts of the interviews for digitization.

Coverage of the Oral History Project:
• September 2012 Issue of Caring
• March 2013 Issue of Caring

Nursing History Publications and Resources

Ann Collins ('66) and Mary Larkin ('76) presented 'A Sesquintennial Celebration of Nursing Education: A Videographic History of the School of Nursing as a podium presentation at the 41st Annual Nursing & Healthcare History Conference.

See a recent Mass General Research Institute blog: https://mgriblog.org/2024/07/01/pioneering-the-field-of-nursing/ How MGH nurses have pioneered the files of nursing since 1873

The following article includes information about nurses during WWI.

https://www.mghpcs.org/nursing-history/

2024: Nursing Outlook manuscript on founding of the school published Post-Civil War modernity and the nurse training movement: The “Experiment” of the Boston Training School for Nurses - ScienceDirect

2020: "Voices Echoing Forward: One Institution’s Efforts to Preserve Nursing History" OJIN https://ojin.nursingworld.org/table-of-contents/volume-25-2020/number-2-may-2020/voices-echoing-forward/

2017 Nursing History Committee members researched and wrote nine articles that appeared in Caring Headlines. Given its focus on staff members’ exemplary ingenuity, perseverance, and care, it felt apt to present to modern-day staff how their predecessors exhibited those same qualities in WWI. The stories included:

An introduction to Base Hospital No. 6, in Talence, France, where ultimately more than 65 Mass General nurses would care for patients throughout the war (Mass General Nursing History Committee, Caring Headlines, April 6, 2017).
The process for becoming a WWI nurse at a time when women could not yet vote. (Mass General Nursing History Committee, Caring Headlines, May 4, 2017).
Base Hospital No. 6 chief nurse Sara Parsons’s fight to gain rank for military nurses (Mass General Nursing History Committee, Caring Headlines, July 6, 2017).
A profile of nurse Helen Dore Boylston, whose WWI diary would go on to be published as Sister: The War Diary of a Nurse, and who would later write the popular Sue Barton series of books, inspiring a generation of women to become nurses (Mass General Nursing History Committee, Caring Headlines, August 3 & September 7, 2017).
A profile of Carrie Hall who became chief nurse of Base Hospital No. 5 (also in France) and was later awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal, the highest international recognition for a nurse, for her courage and devotion (Mass General Nursing History Committee, Caring Headlines, October 5 & November 2, 2017).
Two installments of harrowing descriptions of daily life, including nurse Maude Barton administering ether in the dark, and Helen Dore Boylston’s account of applying fresh bandages to hundreds of soldiers’ wounds (Mass General Nursing History Committee, Caring Headlines, December 14, 2017a).
A description of Mass General nurses’ role in relief efforts after the Halifax explosion and a personal reflection on the explosion (Mass General Nursing History Committee, Caring Headlines, December 14, 2017b).