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American Association of the History of Nursing, Inc.
10200 W. 44th Avenue, Suite 304
Wheat Ridge, CO 80033

Phone: (303) 422-2685
aahn@aahn.org
Fax: (303) 422-8894
www.aahn.org

 

 

Dolls, Figurines, Music Boxes

Dolls and figurines, like other media, can reflect a stereotyped the image of a nurse or be the alteration of an existing product and giving it a nurse costume. Thus this type of collectible can range between any doll or figurine in a pseudo nurse outfit, to the historically accurate Nightingale doll seen below or one of a kind dolls.

Part of a nurse doll collection

The dolls on this shelf include Childhood Days by Royal Daulton, Bing & Bing & Grondahl; Goebel, a faceless Enferma from the Dominican Republic and a Norman Rockwell design.

Throughout the country there are nursing schools with a collection of dolls in nurse costumes or in reproductions of the school uniforms through the years. These collections can be accurate or simply the product of someone's creativity.

Dolls and figurines
repesenting nurses

On this shelf are dolls representing a Red Cross nurse, Florence Nightingale, a "Candy Striper" a doll from Precious Moments and a Boyd's Bear.

Nurse figurines by B. Hummel

This "Willa" doll above is a one of a kind made by a friend of the collector, Willa Fuller, Director of Member Services and Public Relations of the Florida Nurses Association. Some doll makers strive for historical accuracy when making nurse dolls from different eras.

While music boxes are a separate collectible in themselves, those that represent nurses may become part of a nursing collection. The ones pictured below represent some typical renderings of nurses, whether in greeting cards or figurines: animals, small, fuzzy and cute, dressed as nurses and any female dressed in a white dress, cap and with a red cross somewhere.

A collection of music boxes

A collection of music boxes

For further information:

Karl, M. (July 2000). Ladies in white: Nurse dolls provide a cure for the collecting blues. Warman's Today's Collector, 76-77.

Thank you to Dolores Heinzmann for sharing her collection.

 

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