1940s: WWII and its aftermath

In 1941, the United States entered WWII. More than 100,000 nurses volunteered for service through the U.S. Cadet Nursing Corps, preventing a draft of registered nurses. However, a nursing shortage at home led to the increased use of subsidiary workers. WSNA worked to protect the public from undertrained and unqualified care providers.

Washington State Journal of Nursing, October 1942
By Harriet Smith

There was quite a let-down in the railroad station on September 10 when the nurses from Washington left on the train for service with General Military Hospital 50. No brass bands, no banners, no speeches, but crowds of friends and relatives wishing them all God-speed and a safe return. One newspaper reporter innocently and trustingly asked that we collect all the nurses of the unit together to have their picture taken. As well ask that feathers from a pillow be neatly brushed into a pile on a windy day.

But pictures were taken, soldiers and sailors swarmed around and beside one of the cars, a sailor dropped a large peach pie into which the unwary occasionally stepped, to their great discomfort.

When the train pulled out we all wondered when and where we'd see them again, where they'd go and what they'd see.

I'm told that many of them wondered the same about us at home, what events might mark our customary routine existence.

No one knows the answers to such speculations. But we do know that those of us at home not young enough, or healthy enough, or single enough, or those in teaching and supervisory positions are going to be confronted with problems which will test our courage and present us with a challenge we shall have the strength to meet. We'll need our wits and our determination and the support which we give our Nurses Association, as well as that which it gives to us. “V” is for “valor” as well as for “victory.”

Washington State Journal of Nursing, February 1946
By Mary S. Tschuden

These are the homecoming days for which we have so impatiently waited and, as we again greet you one by one, we are proud of your accomplishments and your magnificent record of service. You have earned the heartfelt thanks of your profession, your community, and your country. Welcome home!

Your Association and our nurses who served at home have not been inactive during your absence. You will see many changes. There have been trying and discouraging situations as efforts have been doubled and redoubled to maintain the kind of nursing care we had built up in our communities before the war. Frankly, we did not succeed. Personnel and equipment shortages, plus an all-time overcrowding in our hospitals reduced nursing to minimum essentials. However, much that is worthwhile has grown out of these efforts.

Working together on difficult problems has brought forth many new and previously untried ideas for efficiency, economy and wiser use of available hours of nursing time. We have grown accustomed to evaluating our activities, our methods and our very aims in nursing.

We have gained a growing appreciation for the place of the non-professional worker and have been privileged to see the splendid contribution of volunteer aides.

There has been close cooperation with interested community groups and we have had an unprecedented opportunity to interpret nursing to them.

In our schools of nursing there has been experimentation with new programs, evaluation of objectives, re-examination of school practices and a renewed appreciation of the significance of good clinical experience and competent teaching.

Through our district associations many strides have been made in our organizational activities. Facing difficult problems has brought us closer together. There has been a cooperative spirit of action and a desire to build a stronger association that would serve its members and community more effectively.

Definite progress has been made in the field of personnel policies and employer-employee relations with your Association assuming a more and more active role as our membership came to realize the part that could be played through concerted group action. Progress has been made in salaries, hours, provision for vacation, sick leave, etc. The Standards of Employment Committee is rapidly extending the scope of its activities and various sub-committees are at work on recommendations in special fields of nursing.

Plans for the development of a state Counseling and Placement Service to participate with the A.N.A.’s program was approved at the annual meeting in October and the organizational work is now under way on both local and state levels.

Nurses have welcomed this new service for its direct benefit and assistance to individual members.

The Legislative Committee has been at work on the problems of licensure for all who nurse for hire and though the bill, as introduced in the 1945 legislature, failed to pass, this committee is continuing its efforts to safeguard the welfare and interests of nurses.

This is but a sampling of Association activities which have been carried on during your absence and in welcoming you home we hope that we may welcome you back to active participation in your district association. We need your suggestions, ideas and the freshness of your point of view that we may build nursing, not back to pre-war standards, but on to new and finer standards of achievement.

Washington State Journal of Nursing, November 1949 (excerpt)

What is the team assignment method? It is the fusing of professional and practical nurses into “coordinated teams in which each person, according to background, training and experience, performs certain functions essential to total nursing care.”

The team approach as a means of circumventing the shortage of professional personnel has come in for more and more attention in the past year.

President Lillian Patterson, MA, RN, led the establishment of the economic security program and the Counseling and Placement Service, and was appointed by President Truman as Special Advisor to the World Health Organization.

Executive Secretary Marian Kent, BSN, RN, organized and supervised a sudden surge of activity during World War II, including recruiting for the Cadet Nurse Corps and establishing the Procurement and Assignment Service.