Nurse Advertisements

The Continental Army explicitly sought women to perform nursing care; this is reflected in the advertisements various army hospitals posted in local newspapers. Even when recruiting civilian men for hospital work, the adverts distinguished between female “nurses” and male “assistants to nurses” – despite their overlapping duties. This collection includes several printed advertisements for nurses, as well as the earliest surviving appeal for nurses, written three days after the Battle of Breed’s Hill in June 1775 (part of the Foard Collection of Revolutionary War Nursing). Although these kinds of sources can be challenging to track down, early advertisements for nurses provide crucial historical evidence and insight into the world of waged nursing during the Revolutionary War. Click here to learn more.