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Nurses working for the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service in New York City took these snapshots, which show their lives and the lives of the families they cared for in the 1930s.

White female nurse in uniform standing with a mother, two girls, and a boy outside a walk-up home.

“Miss Kramer pays a welfare visit to some of the little Thomases. Seven children in this family had scarlet fever, and one small boy died. Henry Street Settlement gave care to all seven children and since the children have arranged for tonsillectomies and dental care for some of them and given other health supervision.”

Scarlet fever, a streptococcal infection, was a common childhood disease, although by the 1930s it was rarely fatal.

Tonsillectomies were the most frequently performed surgical procedure in the United States for much of the 20th century. Many medical practitioners believed (incorrectly) the tonsils to be “portals of infection” and that removing them could prevent major illnesses.

Courtesy U.S. National Library of Medicine

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