Historical Records Enter University Archives

A book containing admissions applications from the first students to attend Georgetown University School of Nursing & Health Studies (NHS) recently found a new home in the university’s on-campus archives in Lauinger Library.

Previously housed in St. Mary’s Hall, the timeworn collection is entitled, “List of Lay Nurses Georgetown Univ. Hospital Training School Organized, Sept. 1903.”

The 142-page book contains original admissions applications, dating from 1903—the year NHS was founded—until 1908.

Interspersed throughout the pages are letters of recommendation from physicians, who addressed the prospective students’ health, and religious figures, who spoke to their character. In addition, the book holds handwritten and typewritten student records, including grades and attendance information.

The introductory pages reveal the initials, “ADMG,” which stand for ad majorem dei gloriam (for the greater glory of God), the motto of the Society of Jesus.

An early page also says: “Georgetown University Hospital Training School for Nurses. Registered under New Registration Act for The District of Columbia April 1907 Sister Mary Pauline O.S.F. Superintendent of Hospital. Sister Mary Geraldine O.S.F. [Superintendent] of Training School for Nurses.”

Sister Mary Geraldine, a nun from the Order of Saint Francis, served as the school’s first superintendent—a position that is now called dean—from 1903-1908.

The book also says that the school’s first-ever lecture took place in January 1903. J. Taber Johnson (M’1865), a Georgetown physician, spoke on the ethics of nursing. The same page notes that the inaugural NHS commencement ceremony occurred at 10:30 a.m., on June 13, 1906, in Gaston Hall. The class of 1906, according to the book, consisted of two sisters and six lay nurses.

The book has been moved to the university’s archives in order to preserve its contents for future generations.

For more on the history of NHS, see Alma S. Woolley’s Learning, Faith, and Caring: History of the Georgetown University School of Nursing, 1903-2000 (2001).