Group of 10 women on porch - 8 seated, 2 standing - all wearing caps (verso)

Four sepia photographs of the first class of student nurses in St. Luke's Hospital Training School for Nurses, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Dr. William Estes, director of the hospital, appointed Miss M. J. Merritt from Bellevue Hospital in New York City as the first principal of St. Luke's Hospital Training School for Nurses. This school for nurses was the fourth school established in the United States. Bellevue was the first such school. In the 1870s St. Luke's Hospital was the only hospital between Philadelphia and New York equipped to treat industrial and railroad accident emergencies. Ten years later the hospital increased it services to include general treatment of both male and female patients necessitating the need for more nurses.