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WW2 - Nurse - become a nurse
All the feminists in the audience (bless you) will recoil in horror at this obviously paternatistic image of Uncle Sam as a male diety (all you see are his hands) bestowing the gift of nursing on our humble female cadet supplicant, as only the Great Uncle can.
Look more closely. This Cadet, like all the others, is a brunette, universal 1940's code for "I have a brain". The cynics among you will say: "Yeah, and Uncle Sam knew that brunettes outnumbered blonds and redheads, combined". Well, true enough, and that remains true today, although six decades of technological developments in the hair care industry have obscured this fact. Still, the dominance of brunettes in WW2 nurse recruiting posters proves my point. This visual code to signify female intelligence was already established by Hollywood, the US government was simply clever enough to use it.
What's more important here is the nurse. She is gazing up, but not at a steep angle. She has a far-away look of determination, not one of gratitude towards the Great Uncle himself, who is no more than three feet in front of her. This girl is tough and resourceful. She earned nursing and fears not the great unknowns that lie ahead. She is more a recipient of gratitude, from Uncle Sam himself. She is stronger - far stronger - than she is humble, and rightly so.
(Note to all nurses in the here and now - there is danger of misinterpretation if we impose modern values and sensibilities to judge the past. I get all the modern negative connotations of the nurses cap, as it only appears in a certain type of film in the modern era. The 1940's didn't have this connotation. The cap in this poster signifies the achievement of a nursing degree and service to one's country, nothing more.)
WW2 - Nurse - become a nurse
All the feminists in the audience (bless you) will recoil in horror at this obviously paternatistic image of Uncle Sam as a male diety (all you see are his hands) bestowing the gift of nursing on our humble female cadet supplicant, as only the Great Uncle can.
Look more closely. This Cadet, like all the others, is a brunette, universal 1940's code for "I have a brain". The cynics among you will say: "Yeah, and Uncle Sam knew that brunettes outnumbered blonds and redheads, combined". Well, true enough, and that remains true today, although six decades of technological developments in the hair care industry have obscured this fact. Still, the dominance of brunettes in WW2 nurse recruiting posters proves my point. This visual code to signify female intelligence was already established by Hollywood, the US government was simply clever enough to use it.
What's more important here is the nurse. She is gazing up, but not at a steep angle. She has a far-away look of determination, not one of gratitude towards the Great Uncle himself, who is no more than three feet in front of her. This girl is tough and resourceful. She earned nursing and fears not the great unknowns that lie ahead. She is more a recipient of gratitude, from Uncle Sam himself. She is stronger - far stronger - than she is humble, and rightly so.
(Note to all nurses in the here and now - there is danger of misinterpretation if we impose modern values and sensibilities to judge the past. I get all the modern negative connotations of the nurses cap, as it only appears in a certain type of film in the modern era. The 1940's didn't have this connotation. The cap in this poster signifies the achievement of a nursing degree and service to one's country, nothing more.)