This page is referenced by:

• 1 media/CCSN_0004_0102_001.jpg media/CCSN_0004_0092_015.jpg 2022-08-12T19:19:11+00:00 Cook County School of Nursing 38 image_header 2023-07-01T17:19:34+00:00 Heritage of the Cook County School of Nursing
  The "Cook County Hospital School of Nursing" opened in the fall of 1929 as the successor to the Illinois Training School for Nurses (ITSN). ITSN received its charter in 1880 for the purpose of training nurses and to furnish nursing care to the sick in Cook County Hospital. 1 ITSN was eager to improve the school and made a contractual agreement in 1926 with the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago (University). ITSN would gift its real and personal property to the University with the understanding that the University would establish an undergraduate school of nursing and grant graduates with a bachelor of science degree. Unfortunately, the undergraduate school of nursing at the University never fully materialized. However, in September of 1929, ITSN transferred its properties and records to the University and ceased its operation as a nursing school. 2
  
  The Cook County School of Nursing opened in the fall of 1929 ("Hospital" was dropped from the official name within three months to prevent the public assuming a relationship with Cook County Hospital) and inherited ITSN's facilities, faculty, curriculum, and the last ITSN class of student nurses. 3 However, there was in fact a relationship between the new School of Nursing and Cook County Hospital. According to the 1929 contract between Cook County and the Nursing School, "The School...agrees to furnish, direct and perform the nursing services required for the proper care and nursing of all patients in the Cook County Hospital, including the Psychopathic Hospital, Contagious Hospital, Tuberculosis Hospital, Children's Hospital and all other branches...while this contract is in effect." 4 While there was a contractual relationship for nursing service to the Cook County Hospital, (Hospital) the organization and administration of the Cook County School of Nursing (School) was entirely independent. Yet the practice field for the School's nurses was the Hospital and student nurses worked in various wards and specialty areas of the Hospital. Nursing students also had a two month affiliation with one of three local public health organizations: Infant Welfare, Visiting Nursing, or Rural Public Health Nursing. 5
  
  Prior to 1935, the educational facilities were located in the former ITSN residence building located at 509 South Honore Street. But in May of 1935 a new building located at 1900 West Polk Street in the heart of Chicago's medical center was completed. The new sixteen story location featured two floors for class rooms, multiple lounges, gymnasium, library, sundeck and solarium, infirmary, and eight hundred and twenty-five single rooms for nurses. 6
  The School offered four programs: 1). basic course in nursing, diploma program; 2). courses for graduate nurses; 3). courses for dietetic interns; and 4). courses for affiliating schools. By the mid-1950s at least thirty-five schools from eight states (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Tennessee, and Wisconsin) were sending nursing students to the School for up to three quarters for classes and ward experience in psychiatric, pediatric, obstetric, and contagious disease nurse training. The School's accreditation by the Illinois State Board of Nurse Examiners and the National League for Nursing made it an attractive option for students seeking to become expertly trained. 7
  
  Embracing Diversity
  The School's student body remained primarily white with many Black students not arriving until the 1940s, and it was one of the earliest white-run schools in the city (along with Michael Reese) to renounce racist and exclusionary admissions policies. In 1946, Thomas Wright reported on the human relations in Chicago for a mayoral commission and noted of the School that "At the end of 1946 there were approximately 130 regular students and 370 affiliating students enrolled. . . there were 10-Japanese-American. . . 4 Jewish. . . 1 Mexican. . . 2 Negro regular and 18 affiliate. There was no segregation in the nurses' residence." 8
  
  
  
  According to the School, the basic program admitted students of any race and creed that could fulfill the entrance requirements. Moreover, the School's 1947 report in its discussion of administrative, educational, and professional activities commented that one of its unique characteristics was the variety of graduate nurses from foreign countries that attend for special studies, observation, and/or employment. The report noted that in one month that "there were nurses from British Honduras, West Indies, Mexico, Philippines, Hawaii, Sweden and Norway" and that "[t]hese nurses bring a colorful and cosmopolitan atmosphere to the School and spread to many lands its name and reputation." As for gender, the first male student nurses were accepted in 1948. 9
  
  The School's Black nursing students still comprised a small number of the overall student body but were often featured in newspaper articles of the School's activities and in photos of the graduating class. 10  And while the 1940s and 1950s saw an increased number of Black regular and affiliated student nurses at the School and other students of color, the School regularly struggled in its general recruitment of students and retention for the full three year program. A sub-committee of the Education Committee was created to study the problem and make recommendations. Portions of the 1957 report provide an overview on how racial issues permeated many potential applicants' decisions to attend or not attend the School. In the section titled "Analysis of Reasons" at least 20% of applicants who didn't attend the School were inadequately prepared because they attended a segregated high school. 11  More telling in the report was a survey of seventy four graduate nurses' attitudes towards the School and its students and patients. Fifty-seven respondents received their training at other nursing schools. Several graduate nurses chose not to attend the School because the patients were of the "lower socio-economic groups" and two graduate nurses objected to the neighborhood that surrounded the School and Cook County Hospital's patients. At least seven graduate nurses stated their parents insisted they attend other nursing schools because of the Cook County environment and six other nurses were influenced by racial and cultural prejudice towards the patients and employees. Two Black graduate nurses surveyed felt they were not accepted because they were "Negro" and seven graduate nurses when asked about the patients disliked that there was a "high percentage of Negroes and the variety of races." 12  However, the survey acknowledged that many respondents felt the School offered "incomparable clinical experience and excellent theoretical training." 13
  
  "The University of Illinois Cook County School of Nursing, 1949-1954"
  Many changes had occurred since 1929 but another major shift arose in September of 1949 when the University of Illinois initiated a contractual arrangement with the School's Board of Directors. Students could enter into a joint program and take their nursing courses at the School and a more traditional academic program through the University of Illinois. While several students graduated with a Bachelor of Nursing degree, the diploma program was retained. In 1951, the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois authorized its own School of Nursing as an independent unit of the university and by 1954 both parties agreed that the affiliation should end and "University of Illinois" was dropped from the official name of the Cook County School of Nursing. 14
  
  "A New Life . . . A New Meaning at Cook County"
  In the years that followed the separation of the School and the University of Illinois, the School continued to recruit new students and began advertising its relationship with Cook County Hospital as a avenue for nursing employment. In a brochure titled Nursing Opportunities: Cook County School of Nursing and Cook County Hospital, prospective student and graduate nurses were told that "Cook County School of Nursing provides nursing service and social service to the patients in Cook County Hospital . . . [b]ecause of the hospital's location in a large dynamic medical center, you will have an opportunity to exchange ideas with students and employees from other Chicago hospitals." It was clear that those interested in attending the School would have many options for training and post-graduate work at Cook County Hospital. The brochure noted that "The Hospital and its teaching program is accredited by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Hospitals" and that the School of Nursing was a member of the American Hospital Association and accredited by the National League of Nursing. 15 Nursing services were provided until 1971 when the nursing department transferred to Cook County Hospital. A diploma program in nursing education was still available until the School closed its doors in 1980 as nursing education shifted away from hospital-based programs to university settings. 16
  
  "The hospital for African Americans was Cook County Hospital"
  For many decades, Cook County and Provident were the only two hospitals in Chicago that consistently treated African Americans. Jo Ann Dean, a Black nurse who worked at Cook County Hospital for decades beginning in the 1980s, stated:

  "[B]efore Medicare, a lot of the hospitals would not take African American patients if they didn't have insurance. So County became a dumping ground for patients."

  
  
  And yet, Dean noted that Cook County was a hospital that treated the whole patient, where the focus was on providing care rather than accumulating profits. 
  
  She expressed that: 

  "Basically people felt proud of Cook County Hospital. They felt they had the best doctors in the country at Cook County...we had attendings and doctors coming from everywhere, from U of I, training at County. We had doctors coming across the street from Rush...you had attendings with logos from Northwestern, Michael Reese, they came from everywhere [to train] at Cook County Hospital.
  
  And I tell people all the time, I said, "County." I said, "Operating rooms is open seven days a
  week, every hour of the day."

  
  During Dean's time at Cook County she helped establish the first dedicated AIDS unit in the Midwest. She served patients who otherwise might not have been treated with dignity and care. Indeed, AIDS patients specifically requested to be transferred to the Cook County AIDS unit because of its reputation for quality care. Yet many people, particularly Black Chicagoans, felt that the public hospital was underfunded by the government precisely because it mostly served low income patients of color. As Dean described it, the hospital building that was in use until 2002 had almost no air conditioning, few telephones, and not nearly enough bathrooms for patients.
  
  Learn about the 1976 nurses' strike at Cook County Hospital
  
  In 2002, a new building was erected for the hospital, and it was renamed John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County.
  
  Header Image: CCSN_0004_0092_015, Cook County School of Nursing records, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Illinois Chicago. 
  
  Background Image: CCSN_0004_0102_001, Cook County School of Nursing records, Special Collections & University Archives, University of Illinois Chicago.