Museums are about artifacts

The exhibition A Caring Profession started with a collection. In 1998, out of the blue, I received a call from the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA). The CNA had been documenting the history of Canadian nursing, and their own history, since their founding in 1908, and they were looking for a home for the unwieldy contents of their small museum and archives.

As a woman's historian, I jumped at the chance to document a profession that was one of the few skilled job choices for women in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. I thought it was about time the story of Canadian nursing was documented in a national museum collection, and brought to public attention. When I started to dive into the shelves and drawers at CNA House, I realized this was a goldmine: dozens of uniforms, caps and capes; syringe kits and home nursing bags; Florence Nightingale memorabilia; military uniforms, medals and paintings; diaries and student notebooks.

Eventually, a landmark partnership was created, whereby the CNA documents, photographs and audio-visual material were given to the National Archives, the military nursing collection to the National War Museum, and the rest of the artifacts to this museum. The CNA and Canadian Nurses Foundation launched a campaign to raise funds to transfer, register and digitize the collections.

From Tea Urns to Apothecary Jars

I continued to build the Canadian Nursing History Collection here at the museum, actively seeking donations from nursing school alumnae groups, hospitals and individuals. For example, one day, I found myself in a huge warehouse in Mississauga, going through boxes containing the collection of the Toronto General Hospital (TGH) school of nursing alumnae. I pulled out silver tea urns, punch bowls, tennis trophies and furniture, all from the TGH nurses' residence, and I immediately realized I had the material to illustrate the unique lifestyle of nurses in training. Until the 1970s, most nurses trained at hospitals and lived on site, creating their own culture combining ladylike decorum with high jinks.

Based on the Canadian Nursing History Collection, I proposed an exhibition which would for the first time present an overview of nursing in Canada. But not all the stories could be represented through the collections at CMC. I knew I would have to secure loans of key objects, including the lantern that was used in Florence Nightingale's Crimean hospital. I also wanted objects that had been used in the first hospitals in Canada. A trip to Quebec and Montreal brought me into the world of the first nurses New France, and I walked the same corridors where the nuns prayed for their patients salvation, and their own. The convents generously lent me their precious seventeenth and eighteenth century apothecary jars and portraits. When I visited the Red Cross outpost hospital in Wilberforce, Ontario – still a remote area today – I realized the daring and strength of the Red Cross outpost nurses who transformed a tiny wooden house into an efficient two-room hospital. The outpost is now a museum, and I was thrilled when they agreed to loan the centrepiece of their collection: a maternity kit, complete with layette for mother and baby, umbilical cutters, razor, anaesthetic mask and suture threads.

Artifacts are about stories

What is important about the artifacts in A Caring Profession is what they say about nursing. Street nurse Cathy Crowe's backpack, for example, is mostly made up of prosaic objects such as duct tape, aspirin, bus tickets and bandages. But it reveals the basic needs and dire circumstances of her homeless patients. Artifacts like the white cap, crisp apron and 1918 graduation portrait of nurse Edna Muir are a testament to her professional image and sense of achievement.

A Caring Profession has been made possible by the generous donors and lenders of artifacts, as well those who have shared their knowledge and stories. The Canadian Nursing History Collection is the heart of A Caring Profession, and will continue to be a source for research and other exhibitions in the years to come.

Christina Bates
Ontario Historian
Assistant Director, Archaeology and History