Tuesday, March 13, 2012

1940s Nurse Aprons

Nursing and aprons have been closely connected for centuries. Today's post highlights the 1940s. Naturally, nursing was very important during WWII. There were Red Cross Nurses, Army Nurses, Cadet Nurses and I am sure a few more.

Still of nurses from the movie "Christmas in Connecticut".

 Red Cross apron or coverall.
 Red Cross nurses' uniform pattern.
Promotional poster

5 comments:

  1. Great patterns! If I had ever had a waist like that, I would love that coverall!!!

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    Replies
    1. Lol! I love the old sketches on patterns, even though they don't look like real people.

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  2. My mother in law was a nurse and midwife she has some lovely photo's of her wearing her uniform and hat.

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    1. How wonderful! Such a treasure to have old family photos.

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  3. The first pattern at the top shows a coverall with short sleeves being worn for general household wear, while the pattern on the right shows the bib apron being worn over a Nursing School student's blue and white striped dress. The most typical American Nursing School student's uniform involved this style, with a short sleeved, blue and white striped dress, covered by a plain white heavily starched bib apron. Some schools had variations of this style, using different pastel colors of green, lavender or even gray stripes under the white uniform, others used a solid color or even very small color and white checks. But the preponderance of the uniform designs used the blue and white stripes.
    Most all schools of Nursing which required students to wear this uniform AND live in the student dorms provided laundry service for the uniforms, including the starched pressing. Students in dorms then didn't have the facilities or equipment available to them to do it themselves, or the time!

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