“No Small Part”: Utah Women in Medicine, Nursing, & Midwifery, 1873 – 1930
History of Nursing Education in Utah
The Nightingale School, founded in 1860 in London, England, trained nursing students by having them live at the hospital, attend lectures, and learn by caring for patients under the supervision of experienced nurses of high moral character. The first American hospitals explicitly based on Nightingale's principles opened in the early 1870s in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York. In Utah, the first nursing school inspired by Nightingale opened in 1894 at St. Mark’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. By 1915 there were 1,023 such schools in the country, and three-year hospital schools had become the standard for nursing education.
When nurse training became formalized, textbooks were not far behind. Textbook of Nursing by Clara Weeks, later Clara Weeks-Shaw, was the first American nursing textbook written by a trained nurse. It was popular across the country and went into several editions. These images are from a first edition copy in a private collection.
The Relief Society Nurse School
Several female physicians that returned to Utah with medical degrees conducted formal courses in nursing, midwifery, and invalid cooking. This training prepared nurses to practice in the home, where nearly all nursing care took place. Hundreds of graduates provided medical and nursing services in communities throughout the territory.
In 1898, the Female Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints began to sponsor Dr. Margaret Roberts’ nursing courses. This article from the Relief Society Magazine provides details on the history of the Relief Society's work with nursing. The Committee of the Relief Society School of Obstetrics and Nursing and Public Health Work led the Relief Society School of Obstetrics and Nursing through the first decades of the 20th century.
The first image above shows the LDS Hospital in 1908. The second image is a photograph of the Nurse's Home on the hospital grounds.
The Relief Society nursing school continued and made a big leap forward in 1920 when the program moved into the LDS Hospital, but national training standards did not allow two nursing programs to operate at LDS Hospital, and the Relief Society nursing school closed in 1924.
Nurses trained in hospitals provided professional care for patients, making advances in medical treatments possible. After the 1920s, nurses increasingly provided nursing care in hospitals.