Care in the Combat Zone – PR News

McClelland’s tale is only one story from one front that is told through a new exhibition on display this year at Pennsylvania Hospital. While the contributions of the nurses who served during World War I have been largely unrecognized (or undermined by romanticized propaganda featuring angelic, rosy-cheeked young women) the exhibit throws true experiences like McClelland’s into sharp relief. The collection of photographs, correspondence, artifacts, and mementos focuses on the complex and challenging lives of the nurses grappling with nightmarish trench warfare injuries in France, as well as of those who remained on the home front to face supply shortages, an influx of patients, and a worldwide influenza pandemic that ultimately proved deadlier than the war itself. (See more about the influenza outbreak: Flu Forward[RE1] .)

“When you take in these stories of the part Pennsylvania Hospital’s staff played at home and abroad during this time,” said Stacey C. Peeples, curator and lead archivist of the hospital’s historic collections, “you really get the sense that no matter the crisis, we have historically pulled through and continue to do so.”

The exhibition, “Pennsylvania Hospital and the Great War: Home and Abroad,” will be on display through December 2019 in the hospital’s Historical Library and Portrait Gallery in the Pine Building. Visit at 800 Spruce Street in Philadelphia. To learn more, contact Stacey Peeples at [email protected] or 215-829-5434.