The images in this book speak volumes of the loving kindness manifest by nurses in their care for people in sickness, while injured and their tireless efforts at providing comfort. His tribute is an outstanding expression of appreciation for the active compassion of all nurses.
Everyone who has a nurse in their family, or is the friend of a nurse, or who has benefited from the compassionate care of nurses while in hospital, might consider making a gift of this book to their favorite angel of mercy.
This book is an incredibly beautiful tribute to all nurses, our avatars of compassion and mercy.
Somewhere between the milestones of getting his bachelor's degree and RN license, Zwerdling instructed university students in psychology in New Hampshire; worked as a psychiatric aide in a Waltham, Mass., hospital; and taught karate, meditation, and yoga at his own school in Boston.
His considerable life experience seasons the pages of his first book, Postcards of Nursing. The stunning history not only depicts choice samples from his 25-year collection of nursing postcards, it delivers details, many little-known, about people, world history, art, and culture. The 384-page book is broader than even the "worldwide" its subtitle implies. Zwerdling's research spans time as well as place, offering a look at wars, critical nursing shortages, the Depression, art and humor. All the while it provides the history about who/what gave birth to the profession and why.
The basics: Postcards of Nursing exhibits 600 postcards from the years 1893 to 2002. The book's layout offers easy perusal by building a chapter the same way you'd lay out a museum exhibit. The reader walks through the pages just as he would go from room to room in a museum. For readers wanting more information about the pictures, each of the chapters starts out with a brief introduction and ends with detailed notes about many of the postcards. A bibliography and index prove useful for finding more information.
The rare images you see here indeed come from all over the world. Some are romanticized, some humorous, and some tragic. Some tell a story via sequential images and rhymed words. Nurses are not always people in the depictions, and neither are their patients.
Readers will also recognize some of the drawings from other milieu. Remember those round-faced kids on the sides of soup cans? Zwerdling's book includes the whimsical art of Grace G. Wiederseim, the woman who created the familiar Campbell's Soup Kids, except here her familiar kids are nurses and doctors. And here, as in many other areas, the author thoughtfully provides notes about the artist's life and death.
Zwerdling's extensive research also shows how nurses were used to tout everything from War Savings Stamps to stout, from telephones to fountain pens, and even to the danger of spreading tuberculosis by spitting. Using a nurse to sell a product or idea extends even to modern times, with a 1997 postcard from Denmark featuring an attractive blond nurse and the caption "AIDS is Still Here" as a reminder of World AIDS Day.
As is often the case, there's a story behind the story. The book is a product of the Zwerdling Nursing Archives, the author's personal collection of rare art and photographic postcards. Zwerdling selected each piece for its historic significance, artistic composition, and condition. Although nursing cards make up the primary collection, he also collects postcards with themes related to health. His HIV and AIDS postcards number about 300. He's amassed cards on controlled substances and pharmaceutical advertising, and as a sideline he collects greeting cards and other items related to nursing, storing each piece in archival Mylar.
"Were it to be lost, it would be impossible to replicate," Zwerdling says of his archives. "Many of the items are one of a kind, the prices have skyrocketed since I began collecting, and the cards were assembled via hundreds of sources cultivated over a 25-year period, through trips to France, Belgium, Germany and England."
Still, the collection is immortalized thanks to the book and to Zwerdling's belief in sharing. He makes the images available to nurses and people associated with nursing. He also licenses images for commercial use and offers them free to people researching the history of nursing. "Give of yourself," he advises in one interview when asked why he created the book.
Postcards of Nursing would not be out of place in anyone's library, but nurses with a reverence for the profession will treasure this book.
As a psychologist, the interest is just as keen. What a fascinating mind the author has! He comes to the work from the vantage point of myth and symbol, pointing to the universality of issues of sickness, injury, and mortality juxtaposed against the equally universal themes of nurturance, service and healing. This comes from a person in the field, working as a trauma nurse in a major hospital.
Just as intriguing is the sociological point of view that places all these images in their political/ cultural contexts. We are told of fashion, war, royalty, advertising, and prejudice. I especially love the little human-interest stories that are sprinkled here and there.
What a first rate piece of work for those interested in the human condition. Nursing, per se, is not something I would have gone out and bought a book about, but glancing though a copy of this book hooked me. I am so happy to spend many hours visiting Michael's world. I would love the opportunity to pour through the cards that didn't make it into the book and get a curated tour by Mr. Zwerdling.
Sumner Silverman, Ph.D.