The Iowa Goldstar Military Museum is opening a new exhibit this weekend that covers nurses in the military from 1853 through the Korean War in 1953. Museum curator, Mike Vogt (Vote) says it chronicles the work of nurses at home and abroad.
Vogt says the large number of casualties in the Civil War made it evident that nurses were needed. But he says the male doctors at first thought women would be a little emotionally fragile and they might not be able to stand up to the sights and sounds of wounded soldiers.
Vogt says nursing numbers peaked in World War Two, with 57-thousand in the Army Nurse Corps and several thousand in the Navy Nurse Corps. The nurses worked on hospital ships but were often in dangerous situations.
Vogt says the exhibit shows the parallel paths of nurses and the breakthroughs in medical technology like penicillin, and how nurse training and nursing practice evolved. He says Iowan Annie Widmire was a leader in developing what were called diet kitchens during the Civil War.
Vogt says there were a number of military hospitals in Iowa, including one at Fort Des Moines that specialized in treating orthopedic and amputation cases, He says the event will include kind of a nostalgic group of nurses.
The event is Saturday at 11:00 a-m at the Iowa Gold Star Military Museum at Camp Dodge in Johnston.
