Historic Face Mask Photos in Nursing Collection

Several recent articles have highlighted the history of wearing face masks to prevent the spread of disease, particularly during the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919.  This brought to mind a photograph in our Eastern Maine General Hospital School of Nursing Collection of an unidentified patient wearing a face mask, seated with two women, one of them in her nurse’s uniform.  A handwritten note on the back provides date as 1917 and simply says this is “the man we used to call Mike.”

Another photograph from the 1950s in the collection shows staff members wearing face masks to help protect young patients in treatment.

Both images are available for download in DigitalCommons@UMaine, with the titles of Eastern Maine General Hospital Nurses and Patient, and Eastern Maine General Hospital, Treatment with Iron Lung.

For more information, contact the Special Collections Department at 207.581.1686 or um.library.spc@maine.edu.

This favorite contributed by: Desiree Butterfield-Nagy