Foundations
The Illinois Training School for Nurses was established on September 21, 1880, dedicated to the prospect of training young women to care for the sick. The ITSN was the first Nightingale-type nursing program in the country. Twenty five directors, all women, headed the project. Despite facing opposition to the notion that women could be upstanding citizens and have a rigorous education, the Chicago Medical Society passed a resolution on November 13, 1880, affirming their support for the ITSN. On December 1st of the same year, the Cook County Commissioners and the Training School reached an agreement where the county would pay the school to staff one medical and one surgical ward of the Cook County Hospital. On May 1st of the following year, the first student nurses began working in the wards. Student nurses began working in private homes as early as 1883, expanding the work of ITSN graduates and simultaneously helping raise funds for the school. By the turn of the century, the ITSN provided nurses to every ward of Cook County Hospital.
By the turn of the century, the ITSN provided nurses to every ward of Cook County Hospital.
While ITSN began admitting post-graduated nurses in 1895, it wasn’t until 1920 that the formalized program for dieticians–requiring a college degree–began. In 1926, ITSN agreed to a merger with the University of Chicago, where the nursing school could begin offering a Bachelors degree to students. By 1929, the merger was complete and ITSN ceased to exist. From there on it became the Cook County School of Nursing.
As a fairly new and revolutionary concept, the ITSN attracted many pioneers to the world of nursing, including Mary Brown and Edith Draper from New York’s Bellevue Training School and Laura Logan, who later established the University of Cincinnati School of Nursing.
Below you’ll find a pamphlet that was distributed to interested students and organizations highlighting some of the institution’s facilities, curriculum, and traditions. You can zoom in for better detail
The Nursing Pin
Pins were adopted in 1915 to distinguish between different classes of nurse and employees at the ITSN. Illinois Training School nurses had blue enamel with white bars indicating first/second/third year students from post-graduates. Attendants and orderlies ‘were given a different style’ with the letters ITS.
The crane in the center of the ITSN pin is a common symbol for nurses pins used to symbolize vigilance. The blue band symbolizes constancy. Most schools in the tradition of Florence Nightingale’s training use some variation of the Maltese cross in their design, the ITSN being no exception. Similar to the cross used in fire department insignia, the Maltese cross is a symbol dating back to the Middle Ages, used for knights who cared for injured and sick pilgrims returning from the crusades. The eight points in the Maltese cross represent the eight beatitudes knights were to uphold, so their significance for nurses is still just as relevant.
The eight beatitudes change in definition based on era and region, but their meanings are consistent:
Loyalty. Care for the Church. Helpfulness to the Sick and the Poor. Contempt for Death. Honor and Glory. Courage. Generosity. Piety.
