Nostalgia & History > AT&SF Courier Nurses

A thread posted a while back had some great scans of magazine ads highlighting the Santa Fe's Courier Nurses, from which I saved several pictures. I was wondering if anyone else had some digital media pertaining to the Santa Fe's courier nurses. Any other railroad that used them would be greatly appreciated as well. I am preparing a slideshow for my class' graduation from nursing school, and would like to add a bit of historical perspective - while shoehorning some trains in, of course.

Anything anyone has to offer would be tremendously appreciated.

Eric
MP 18.4, Harbor sub

Find a copy of William R. Kuebler, Jr., "The Vista-Dome North Coast Limited." The NP used RNs for many years, and on pages 223 to 244 there is a great deal of information, including pictures of almost all of the nurses who worked on the train and short comments from many of them. Of course, among the requirements for the job were that you be young, female, and unmarried. In addition, I think there was an implicit requirement that you be good looking. And, of course, given the racial division of jobs on the railroad at the time, you also had to be white. Both the laws concerning discrimination and the make-up of the nursing profession have changed considerably since then.

The first airline stewardesses all had to be nurses, and of course, single. I don't know when the nurse requirement was removed but 2 of my sorority sisters were stews and were not nurses and that was in the late '50's. I think the single requirement lasted until women's lib struck. When the CZ was begun in 1949 the Zephyrettes didn't have to be nurses but they had to be single and had a "housemother".
C.

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

The Seaboard Air Line used nurses on their "Silver Meteor" and "Silver Star" trains.Both trains also had a Passenger Service Agent,always a male.

Uncle Joe
Just east of Tampa

There was a neat calandar "Women on the Railroad" put out ca 1995 that had a nice pic of ATSF nurse/stews. Great pix throughout the calandar of women during WWI and II.

The UP Challengers in the late 30's also had them as also the SP
Californian..