Museum Collections

Nursing Cap case in the Atrium of LaSalle University

Nursing Cap case in the Atrium of LaSalle University

The Museum has a substantial collection of nursing memorabilia, old nursing books, documents, yearbooks, pictures, and artifacts donated through the years.

Many items are personal collections from nurses dating back to the 1900’s.  The museum is home to civilian and military uniforms, nursing caps, capes, and uniforms dating back to 1899.

A uniform chest of Sarah Lillian Clayton (1896 graduate of the Philadelphia General Hospital Training School of Nursing) also is housed at the Museum.

All artifacts and documents can be viewed by appointment at the Museum located in the St. Benilde Tower – Third Floor at La Salle University, Philadelphia, PA.

A cursory sample of text and documents include:

  • Hildegard Peplau’s personal collection
  • Nursing School student ledger kept by the Superintendent at Hahnemann Hospital from 1893 to 1920
  • Clinical texts for nurses by physicians from 1910 to 1946
  • Hospital School’s of Nursing histories
  • Nursing School Yearbooks
  • Early Nursing School Curriculum Guides and Lesson plans
  • Nursing education textbooks in all clinical areas: 1870s to 1978
  • Home Health Nursing and Public Health Nursing texts and other written resources
  • Works by Clara Weeks Shaw (1907), Maxwell and Pope, Lavinia L. Dock, and Isabel Hampton Robb
  • Harmer, Harmer & Henderson, PGH nursing education training text (1943)
  • Nursing history texts from Florence Nightingale to Nutting and Dock, Stella Goostray, Mary M. Roberts and many more
  • Many early nurse leader addresses, bound early nursing periodicals, Nursing Organization Papers, and a Red Cross Collection
  • Texts re: Founding of Red Cross, Leaders, WWI & II
  • Texts and extensive collections of WW II pamphlets, field manuals, personal journals of nurses at war in their donated individual collections.

 

Artifact collections include:

  • Over 65 nursing caps View collection online
  • Civilian nursing practice uniforms from 1899 to 1950
  • Military uniforms – dress, hospital, and battlefield from 1899 to 1950
  • Home care nursing artifacts from 1899 to the 1920s
  • Hospital instruments, machines, and miscellaneous items used in patient care in the past
  • Representative nursing cape collection to accompany the uniforms
  • Antique medicine cabinet
  • Furniture used by nursing leaders
  • Over 100 nursing diplomas from the past
  • Red Cross, civilian, and military uniforms
  • Photography collections include individual nurse leaders, original photos of the Army School of Nursing, and early training school graduation photographs and many more items