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(H)our History Lesson: The Cadet Nurse Corps and the WWII Home Front

Black and white of three women in nurse caps with a Cadet Nurse Corp Patch looking into microscopes. An older man in a white coat looks over their shoulder.
Cadet Nurse Corps training included classes in science and other subjects in addition to on the job training. This still is in a bacteriology lab from a 1944 promotional film for the Cadet Nurse Corps entitled "Reward Unlimited."

Vanguard Films, Inc., for the U.S. Public Health Service and the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps. Public domain.

Introduction

This lesson explores the history of the Cadet Nurse Corps, a World War II-era program that trained student nurses.

Essential Question

What opportunities were available to women because of World War II?

Lesson Objectives

  1. Identify the goals of the Cadet Nurse Corps and connect those goals to the United States’ World War II efforts.

  2. Describe the benefits of joining the Cadet Nurse Corps for the women who participated.
  3. Evaluate the impact of the Cadet Nurse Corps on women in the United States.

Warm Up

Think about when you go to the doctor. Who do you see and talk to? How much time do you spend with a doctor? What about with a nurse? Why are nurses an important part of keeping you healthy?

Background Reading

Have students review this short article about the history of the Cadet Nurse Corps.

Student Activities

Activity 1: Nurse Training on the Home Front

Teacher Tip: Assign students different documents. You may choose to assign them deliberately based on their reading level or randomly. Reading levels range from 5th to 10th grade and are marked on the documents. If you have the space in your classroom, encourage students to add to a communal or group list of reasons for the US government to create the Cadet Nurse Corps. They can do this on a whiteboard, a piece of shared chart paper or a digital forum. Ask students to put the number of the document next to their reason in order to keep track of sources. Student can put a check mark next to reasons they also see in their document.

All documents can be found in “Training of Nurses: Hearing before the Committee on Education and Labor, United States Senate, 78th Congress, first session on S. 983.” Washington DC: May 6 and 7, 1943. http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/7911440

Read at least one of the documents below and answer the following questions:

  1. List the reasons for the US Government to support training more nurses during World War II.
  2. Which reasons seem directly related to World War II?
    1. The bill is specifically about nurses for hospitals in the US. What is the relationship between nurses in the US and the war effort according to your source?
  3. This person is testifying before Congress. What is their relationship to nursing and/or to World War II? How does their perspective add to Congress’ understanding of the purpose of the bill?
  4. Are there any reasons that are not mentioned in the testimony? Why do you think that perspective would not come up?

Activity 1: Documents

Statement of Rear Admiral Ross T. McIntire, Medical Corps, United States Navy, Surgeon General of the Navy

Modified for 9th Grade Reading Level

“For the record, I would like to say that the need for at least 65,000 more student nurses in this coming year is imperative [urgent and necessary].

“Now to do this, the Government will need to help. ... I would like to add that not only do we in the armed services need more nurses, and will continue to need more, but that in the long view, the [home front] through the rest of the war and in the post war period, [does] not have anywhere near enough graduate nurses to supply those needs.

“And we need to consider what will happen when this war is over. The change in population that comes from war industries that has certainly dislocated [moved] populations. Health conditions will be of even greater importance to the future of this country following the war…” (pg 3)

“We are, of course, during this year, and the next year, and [hopefully not much longer], as far as the armed services are concerned, will still need to take nurses from our civil institutions. That is, the graduate nurses. Now we might feel that we, when the war is over, could return these nurses to civil life. I don’t believe we are going to be able to do that anywhere near in the percentages that we would expect. Because, whether we like it or not, we are going to have a great responsibility in seeing that there are not epidemics in [other] parts of the world. And so, the armed forces will need, for a time, to keep up the strength of their medical departments. That will mean that we will need to keep a great many of these reserve nurses on active duty in the services for some period following the war. And for that reason, we will not give the help then that we should give to the [home front] communities immediately following.” (pg 3-4)

“Our rehabilitation [recovery for soldiers] program will be a very large one. And I believe that if we start now—and we have started I can tell you that—making plans for some rehabilitation of our wounded, that we will not make the same mistake that was made in the last war, of waiting until a great many could not be rehabilitated. But it will mean that our institutions will need [more] nurses, well trained in this field of rehabilitation.” (pg 4)

Telegram to the Committee from Mildred Walker, Superintendent of Utah Valley Hospital in Provo, Utah

Modified for 7th Grade Reading Level

“I am writing to lay before you the desperate situation which is facing this hospital in trying to provide nursing care. Not adequate care—but care of a kind to the patients referred to us. Due to the large steel industry for the war effort, the [increased] population and industrial accidents has placed a demand for care beyond the hospital’s [size]. Likewise, the obstetrical [childbirth] service has doubled. On the other side of the picture, from the staff of 17 nurses we now have 7, with no nurses available after this week for the operating suite.

“In the course of the last 15 months three of our supervisors have left for the armed services. Numerous general duty nurses have married and gone with their husbands to the coast or other parts of the country. The solution for us [is not] short-cuts or in aids, for we [already] cut routines to the minimum and added both a large staff of paid aids and Red Cross Volunteer aids. However, we do not have [enough] nurses to supervise the aids we now have or to cover one nurse to a floor on various shifts….” (pg 6)

Statement of Rev. John G. Martin, Superintendent of the Hospital of St. Barnabas, Newark, N.J.; President-Elect of the American Protestant Hospital Association

Modified for 8th Grade Reading Level

“Hospitals throughout the country have found themselves in the position of having an increased business. [More] patients go to hospitals for various reasons. First the general [wealth] is enabling more people to attend to their ills than [before]. Then there is a great increase in industrial accidents because of the speed up of industry. Third, there is the increase in maternity work, more babies are brought into the world, and more and more of them are being born in hospitals….

“The hospitals are sending their nurses into the war service, and that leads to a shortage of nurses. [Plus], the nurses are [slowly] taking on more heavy responsibilities that formerly were the responsibilities of the medical services the interns, and so on.” (pg 33-34)

Statement of Mabel Keaton Staupers, Executive Secretary of the National Association for Colored Graduate Nurses

Modified for 8th Grade Reading Level

“Our office is [now] swamped with calls for Negro nurses, not only to the Negro hospitals but to some of the largest hospitals in this country in the North, the Middle West, the Far West, and the Northeast. For that reason, there is a definite need for more educational opportunities for Negro nurses. And this bill would help those opportunities. …In New York City we have about 1,250 Negro* nurses serving on an interracial basis in the city hospitals…

“And also, although we feel that at this time, we are limited in our service for the United States Army, we are only being called on to serve and are serving in four Army camps [now], we know there will be a need for us. We have that feeling about it, and we want to be ready.”

“We are being used in the veterans’ facilities, and we can again not fill the need. Only yesterday a call came to us from the Japanese Relocation Centers, for nurses, and we would have to borrow those nurses.”

“Another point that I would like to [make] is the sponsors of the bill have not at this moment thought of any safeguards for minorities in the bill, especially the Negro. ...We endorse the bill in principle, and we do hope that consideration will be given to safeguard to minorities.” (pg 37-38)

*Language Tip: “Negro” was a term used in the 1940s for African Americans by people of all races. This is no longer a term that we use today and should only be used when quoting directly from a primary source document.

Statement of Mrs. Eleanor Davies Tydings, Volunteer Red Cross Aide

Modified for 5th Grade Reading Level

“I am a volunteer Red Cross aide, and I have come because I think there is a crying need for more nurses. In fact, I know there is a crying need for more nurses…

“We, Red Cross volunteers, are trained for only 3/12 weeks, 4 hours a day training. And that does not qualify us to give medication or [shots] or any of the things that nurses do…

“For example, in a ward with 26 patients in private rooms…there will be only one nurse from 11 to 7 every day for 26 patients. Well, it is physically impossible for one nurse to take care for 25 patients. Even though she may have one Red Cross nurse’s aide to help her. You just run your legs off; I know that…

“Miss Wilson at Garfield [Hospital] said to me, we can just barely stagger along now with the help we have got. What we are afraid of is that it is getting worse and worse, and we will have less and less. That means that people are going to be suffering in agony. There isn’t going to be anybody to bring them a glass of water when they are dying for a glass of water. There isn’t going to be anybody to come and help them when they need a [shot], because the one nurse, or the half a nurse, is just not going to be able to get around to all those patients.” (pg 45)

Statement of Hon. Frances P. Bolton, Representative from the Twenty-Second District of Ohio, House of Representatives

Modified for 10th Grade Reading Level

“We are hoping that this method of the Student Nurse Reserve will bring a little drama into the picture so that the recruitment will be easier. We have found it difficult because of the dramatic services that are opening for women, and of course the higher pay [of industry]. This makes it very necessary…that we have some kind of payment going to the student while she is in training so that she does not need to become a burden to her family and to herself. ...

“We feel that the nurse will be of such great use. We are developing a public-health conscience. We are developing an international conscience. We are developing many things that will take up the supply of graduate nurses after the war. And many of those nurses who have married, who have their homes, will just long to get back to their homes. But at the same time, the services are being so developed—you take the need that there will be in Veterans’ hospitals, in our general hospital situation, and I feel sure that such a situation as prevailed after the last war does not need to be feared at this time….” (pg 48)

“It is a very, very serious situation for all hospitals, because the nurses are patriotic, they have gone from all areas, just as fast as they could get into the Army. Naturally that is their first desire. Although we have tried to keep teaching nurses, and nurses in responsible positions in hospitals, to keep their jobs and stay home, but that is very hard when the pressure is great at the front.” (pg 49)

Congress authorized the Cadet Nurse Corps unanimously. That means that at least some of these reasons persuaded all members of Congress, regardless of political parties. This is very rare today but is a reflection of wartime priorities. Consider this wide support when doing the rest of the activities.

Activity 2: Patriotic Posters

Once the program went into effect, the government worked to recruit young women, competing with industry jobs and military opportunities. National recruiters and local supporters of the new program created a variety of advertisements to draw participants.

Look at the photos in the album below and answer the following questions:

  1. According to the posters, what are the reasons a woman should join the Cadet Nurse Corps?
  2. How do the artistic choices on the posters – images, colors, font, etc.—support the messages? Why might this appeal to a young woman during World War II? What is left out of the posters that you think would be part of the experience given the testimony on the bill?
  3. How do these reasons fit with the reasons the government implemented the program? Does the government have the same reasons for starting this program that women have for joining it? Why might that be?
  4. What do the promises in the posters say about the role of women in society during World War II?

Activity 3: Nursing Experiences

Read the following transcripts from interviews with two former cadet nurses. If you have access, you may visit the University of Wisconsin Archives to view the original videos. As you read, consider the impact of the Cadet Nurse Corps on these women and their fellow cadets.

Source: George Knorr. “Cadet Nurse Corps Interview.” Ebling Library, University of Wisconsin. U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps--Videos - Short History of Military Nursing - Research Guides at University of Wisconsin-Madison
6th Grade Reading Level

Anna Mae Schurko: [Cadet Nurse Interview, pt 1. 7:34]
Well, you [Cadet Nurse Corps trainees] completed three years. That included learning and serving. You learned in the classroom, and you went on the [medical] units and performed. You did all services that the graduate nurses did prior to the Cadet program. There might have been one registered nurse as the supervisor. It was a full three years. Twelve-hour plus days. If you were fortunate enough to complete the program...

[Cadet Nurse Interview, pt 2.] The seniors were primarily going into the military. And because the war ended then we were not quite sure what was going to happen to those that were in the Cadet Corps. President Truman, though, who succeeded President Roosevelt, did not wish to continue the Cadet Nurse program in terms of new student nurses but to complete the education of those that were in the program. So, 1948 was the end of the formal training. And of course, men were coming back from the service, so many, many [nurses] got married. And some stayed at home to raise families and others went on to extend their nursing education by getting degrees.

Interviewer [Cadet Nurse Corps Interview, pt 2, 1:06]: Where did you wind up? Locally?

Anna: I completed my training in Scranton in 1948, and I went to New York State, because other nurses from my school were working there. That’s where I originally started my graduate nursing. Then I went to Florida to a Veteran’s hospital -or a hotel was converted into a Veteran’s hospital and then a general hospital. I worked there. I was married. And until I came back east up to New Jersey, never went back to Pennsylvania to work, but worked in New Jersey for many, many years. I had fifty years of nursing before I retired.

Marjorie J. Patak [Cadet Nurse Corps Interview, pt 2, 2:12]: Actually, because of Bellevue [Hospital] and its location, our last six months we were sent to veterans’ hospitals, army and navy hospitals. One of the Cadets was sent to an Indian reservation. So we were deployed our last six months of training to where they thought we would be needed, taking care of veterans and so forth and so on. I went to the Bronx VA [Veteran’s Administration]. After Bellevue and the very hard work we that we experienced there, they treated us extremely well. And of course, we loved the veterans. That was such an honor to care for them. We worked days and we worked evenings but we were not committed to work nights, which was a big plus for us. And again, we lived in nurses' housing there.

I completed training. I worked in New York for a year. I passed my state boards in New York. That was good because we had reciprocity with all the states in the union. I worked for a short time at hospitals in New York and when my husband came home, he was a Navy [unclear] and I wanted to complete some other assignments that I had for the year. We did get married and I worked for a small portion of time in Hackensack hospital, but after I had a third child, I said I wanted to stay home with my children. My husband said that’s fine with me—he had a good job. He was also going back to school to become an engineer. So, I stayed home for twelve years then I returned to work at Hackensack hospital, just on Saturday or Sunday evening. I went back to classes to catch up with what was going on. And then after the kids were in college, we needed more money—obviously we needed more money—so I went to the VA hospital and the last twenty years I was in a Surgical ICU [Intensive Care Unit] at a VA [Veterans Association] hospital…but it was one of the best things I ever did in my life, to go to nursing school.

After reading or watching the interviews, answer the following questions:

  1. What do you learn about the training and work of the Cadet Nurse Corps?

  2. What did the interviewee (Anna or Marjorie) do after World War II with her CNC training? What did she think that other women did after their training?

  3. Based on their experience, do you think the government’s goals were met with the CNC program? Based on their experience do you think the promises made to women joining were met?

  4. How did the Cadet Nurse Corps impact the war effort? How did it impact the United States after the war?

Extending Assessment

In the past two decades, there has been an effort to gain veteran status for the members of the Cadet Nurse Corps. The United States Cadet Nurse Corps Service Recognition Act has been filed in the House and the Senate with bipartisan support multiple times but has never gotten a full vote. If passed, the bill would recognize Cadet Nurse Corps nurses as active-duty service members, which allow them to be buried with military honors and get honorary veteran status. It will not entitle them to a pension or any other benefits.

In class, have a debate about whether or not to pass this bill. You can either divide the class in two groups, in support of or against this bill. Or, you can each choose based on your beliefs. Use your knowledge of the Cadet Nurse Corps program, the women that served and their contribution to World War II to support your position.

Further Reading

“Short History of Military Nursing : U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps.” Ebling Library, University of Wisconsin, Madison. Home - Short History of Military Nursing - Research Guides at University of Wisconsin-Madison

This article was written by Alison Russell, a consulting historian with the Cultural Resources Office of Interpretation and Education. It was funded by the National Council on Public History’s cooperative agreement with the National Park Service.

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Last updated: September 6, 2023