News
October 28, 2022

Flashback Friday: Playing Nurse

Christine Kueter
A set of toy rubber hand puppets from the Bjoring Center
A family or rubber hand puppets in a set used by pediatric NPs in the '70s to teach kids about hospitals.

The Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry contains thousands of artifacts—letters, photographs, diaries, clothing, and medical and nursing equipment and books from the past—that offer a glimpse into the practices and experiences of nurses across time.

Included in its collections is a disparate selection of toys, games, and tools, which offer a vantage on pediatric and public health nursing as well as early promotional items meant to entice children to consider products or urge them toward the profession. Today's Flashback Friday takes look at a few of those objects BY THE NUMBERS.

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Number of puppets in a set used by pediatric NPs in the '70s to teach kids about hospitals

Included in its collections is a disparate selection of toys, games, and tools, which offer a vantage on pediatric and public health nursing as well as early promotional items meant to entice children to consider products or urge them toward the profession. A look at a few of those objects BY THE NUMBERS.

Cherry Ames books from the Bjoring Center, part of a toy feature
27 Books in the Cherry Ames series, written by Helen Wells and Julie Tatham between 1943 and 1968, which topped many girls' reading lists, though they were later dismissed as propaganda.
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toy playing cards from the Bjoring Center collections
52: number of cards in the “Cheer Up” playing cards set. Stagecraft products, UVA. No date.
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A spinning toy and cards, part of a set of instruments used by nurse practitioners to assess children's vision.
5: number of cards included with this "Preschool Vision Test" kit used by nurses in the 1970s. Also included: a 15-foot string, a spinning toy, an occluder, and a flashlight.
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WWI era toy figurines of soldiers and nurses
1915: the year that this family of WWI-era painted metal toys was produced.
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Nurse Nancy, from the Bjoring Center, for the feature on kids toys
2: examples in the Center of products targeted to children. Nurse Nancy, by Kathryn Jackson (1958), included several colorful BAND-AID brand bandages for “teaching first-aid habits" to kids . . .
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a clown shaped medicine container toy for children from the Bjoring Center
Noted the donor of this clown-shaped container: “Drug companies often sought ways to promote their products . . . This cute little critter was a medicine sample for children in the 1940s or 50s."
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Today's Flashback Friday brought to you by the Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, which was established at UVA in 1991 to support historical scholarship in nursing. Dedicated to the preservation and study of nursing history, the Bjoring Center collects historical materials, promotes nursing history scholarship, and disseminates historical research findings.

The center hosts a regular series of nursing history forums, sponsors an annual Agnes Dillon Randolph Award and lecture, awards annual research fellowships, and publishes a newsletter. Read our special 30th-anniversary publication, Object Lessons.

The center is open to researchers and visitors Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m.- 5 p.m., or by appointment. Please contact the center to schedule an appointment.

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