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Nurses: On the Job

What do we see when we look closely?

Examine this image of Japanese nurses, sometimes known as 'Angels in the white uniform' (Hakui no tenshi), who played a major role in the modernization of Japanese society and the adoption of Western medicine from the late 1860s onwards.
Roll over different areas of the postcard to discover answers to the questions below.

    • Q1Can you identify which women are volunteering to serve as Red Cross nurses?
    • A1The nurses without hats are high-ranking aristocratic women from the Japanese Red Cross Society who have volunteered their services on the battlefields.
    • Q2Can you see what the nurses are doing?
    • A2Aristocratic women, highly accomplished in the skills of treating wounds and bandaging, were in charge of nursing care in many Red Cross field hospitals.
    • Q3Can you spot the facial differences between nurses and patients?
    • A3The Russian soldiers' facial characteristics are exaggerated to establish their ethnic difference from the Japanese nurses caring for them.
Five Japanese women nurses and one male doctor, tending to two Russian wounded men.
1 2 3

An illustration of Japanese Red Cross nurses tending to wounded Russians during the Russo-Japanese war (1904–1905), Chemulpo, Korea (today Incheon, South Korea), ca. 1905

    • Q1Can you identify which women are volunteering to serve as Red Cross nurses?
    • A1The nurses without hats are high-ranking aristocratic women from the Japanese Red Cross Society who have volunteered their services on the battlefields.
    • Q2Can you see what the nurses are doing?
    • A2Aristocratic women, highly accomplished in the skills of treating wounds and bandaging, were in charge of nursing care in many Red Cross field hospitals.
    • Q3Can you spot the facial differences between nurses and patients?
    • A3The Russian soldiers' facial characteristics are exaggerated to establish their ethnic difference from the Japanese nurses caring for them.
  • 1Can you identify which women are volunteering to serve as Red Cross nurses?
  • 2Can you see what the nurses are doing?
  • 3Can you spot the facial differences between nurses and patients?

Choose another postcard from Nurses: On the Job

  • White female army nurse in uniform and cap, visible from chest up.
  • A White female nurse, stands with young White woman and points into distance.
  • Large room filled with several dozen White women looking forward.
  • Three White female nurses in white aprons and a White male doctor hold babies.
  • An African American female nurse in white holds diploma and looks at the viewer.
  • A White female nurse in white squats down while talking with a White mother and child.
  • Five Japanese Red Cross female nurses in white carrying a stretcher in a field with building behind.
  • Female nurse in white shaking hands with another female nurse, in front of group of women nurses.
  • A White female nurses in white visible from shoulder up on left, on right is stamp.