The collection includes records of the Fourth and Fifth District of the Wisconsin State Nurses Association, the Wisconsin Nurses Club and Directory, and some records from the Milwaukee District of the Wisconsin League of Nursing Education. The collection is arranged in three series: General Correspondence, Corporate Records, and a Subject File. Materials in the General Correspondence and Corporate Records pertain to the Nurses Association. The Subject File contains records from the Nurses Club, the League of Nursing Education, and several other professional and community organizations.
The GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE includes incoming and outgoing letters of the district headquarters from the organizations concerned with health care and medicine, other organizations of nurses and medical professionals, the State Board of Health, the Internal Revenue Service, other assorted state and federal agencies, some financial institutions, and several hospitals and civic organizations in the Milwaukee area. Most of the correspondence concerns organizing programs, conventions, and symposia; the financial status of the organization; civic affairs; legislation; and general problems confronting the nursing profession such as unemployment or shortages or trained personnel. Some communications between the district headquarters and the sections and committees of the Association are included in the correspondence.
In the CORPORATE RECORDS, the Minutes document the regular monthly meetings where such topics as finances, upcoming events, changes in the structure of the organization, and the activities of committees and sections were discussed. The minutes covering the period from November 1918 to September 1922 are missing. The Board of Directors Minutes concern more routine matters such as accepting new members, arranging speakers for meetings, the progress of committees, physical changes in the district headquarters, and financial matters.
The Committee Records include records from only a portion of the Association's many committees and generally contain many gaps. Most committee records include some correspondence, incomplete sets of minutes from meetings and information on special projects and programs undertaken by the committees. The most complete sets of committee records are from the Jane Merrill Ray Scholarship Committee and the Committee on the Nurses Professional Registry. The records pertaining to the registry contain some statistics on the number of calls for nurses, the types of service requested, the institutions receiving services, and the number of hours of duty.
The Section Records generally are more complete, especially those from the Industrial and Private Duty sections. Records of the Private Duty Section provide good documentation of attempts at professional self-regulation, the establishment of standard fees, and efforts to improve the working conditions and to reduce the hours of duty. The Financial Records are arranged chronologically and consist of treasurers' reports, monthly reports of income and expenditures, budgets, and occasional reports of special fund raising events.
Materials in the SUBJECT FILE cover a variety of topics of interest to the nursing profession. The most extensive coverage is that of the organizations with which the Association cooperated. This portion of the subject file includes records from the Milwaukee District of the Wisconsin League of Nursing Education. Included in the Leagues records is an item inventory of historical materials about the Milwaukee County General Hospital School of Nursing. The section on organizations also contains the records of the Wisconsin Nurses Club and Directory prior to its merger with the Milwaukee District Nurses Association. The material son property document the legal and financial problems faced by the Association in conjunction with ownership of the Ray mansion. Efforts by the Association to recruit and train nurses for the military and civilian service during World War II are especially well documented. Materials in the subject file include correspondence, reports, some committee records, research papers, and survey results.
