Nursing Inquiry 1995; 2: 224-226

Our pictures of us

Peter Short School of Nursing Therapeutics, UTS, Broadway, New South Wales, Australia

Accepted for publication 4 July I995

SHORT P. Nursing Inquiry 1995; 2: 224-226 Our pictures of us Photographs of nurses taken by Mable Balmer more than 70 years ago provide an opportunity for nurses to see and situate themselves in the history of nursing.

Key words: images of nurses, photographs, visual history.

While researching the collection of the State Library of New South Wales for images of nurses and nursing, the photographs of Mable Balmer came to my attention as an example of nurse generated imagery. Although there are literally thousands of photographs with nurses in them, Balmer’s are notable in that they were taken by a nurse. It is much more common to see nurses in official pho- tographs taken by others.

Mable Balmer was born in New Zealand in 1898. She left primary school to care for her mother who had cancer, and beyond this little is known about the early part of her life.‘ In 1912, 2 years after her mother’s death, Mable’s father brought the family to Australia to live with his sister in her boarding house at Katoomba, NSW. After he died of tuberculosis in 1913, Mable began working for her aunt. She also started a typing course at this time, but did not complete it (P. Degens, pers. comm. 1994).

In 1915 at the age of 17, Mable approached her guardian, the Public Trustee, for money to begin her nurse training at Parramatta Mental Hospital. (Why she chose PMH is not known, although her daughter believes it was because the Intermediate Certificate was not a prerequisite for entry.) By the time she commenced training she already had substantial experience in looking after others, including her parents and the people at the boarding house. She remained working at PMH until 1926, living in the nurses’ home as was the custom of the day.

Balmer had an interest in photography which was spurred by her meeting with Harry Phillips, a well-known

Correspondence: Peter Short Faculty of Nursing, St Leonards Campus, UTS, PO Box 123, Broadway, NSW 2007, Australia.

Blue Mountains photographer who had published many books. She assisted him in the darkroom and learned com- position from being at his side as he worked. Her own black and white photographs, taken with a small Kodak Box Brownie, were developed and printed at the local chemist shop.

Balmer left Parramatta in 1926 to commence her chil- dren’s nurse training at Greycliffe Hospital, Vaucluse, NSW. She stayed there for 1 year, before returning to PMH in 1927. This time she remained until 1930, when she com- menced midwifery at Crown Street Hospital in Sydney. Again she left before finishing the course, this time to marry Harry Phillips’ brother-in-law, Thomas Thompson, in May 1930. They moved to Canberra later that year. Mable never worked as a nurse again, a pattern not atypical then or now.

Balmer took many photographs while working at Par-

F i p 1 Parramatta Mental Hospital, Parramatta, NSW.

Our pictures of us

Figure 2 Parramatta Mental Hospital, Parramatta, NSW.

Figure 5 Greycliffe Hospital, Vaucluse, NSW.

Figure 3 Parramatta Mental Hospital, Parramatta, NSW.

Figure 6 Greycliffe Hospital, Vaucluse, NSW.

Figure 4 Greycliffe Hospital, Vaucluse, NSW.

ramatta. Three of these (Figs 1-3), along with three taken during her time at Greycliffe (Figs 4-6), were included in the ‘At Work and Play’ exhibition, State Library of NSW, 1988. These personal snapshots reflect the integrity of nurses and nursing, and make a valuable contribution to the visual history of nursing.

In the dormitory pictures (Figs 1, 2) order prevails, yet it is not difficult to imagine the chaos of bedtime. Despite the spartan surroundings, human warmth, as shown by

their relaxed, comfortable smiles, is evident between these nurses. Figure 3 shows the nurses’ home at PMH, where Balmer lived.

Again, the Greycliffe pictures are very personal shots. There is a level of comfort and acceptance between these women - a sense of equality of relationships between Balmer and her nursing friends.

Images like Balmer’s and the stories they tell provide a counterpoint to official histories and images. While those histories describe heroic struggles by tenacious nurses, or tell of great advances in nursing care, Balmer has concen- trated upon the interpersonal relationships that a nursing life gave her.

Such photographs, showing early nurses and their prac- tice, can provide information about the conditions, uni- forms and equipment used by nurses at the time. These small details are often only hinted at in written accounts.2

Balmer’s images allow nurses to challenge assumptions made about nursing. Photographs that show nurses, made

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by/for doctors or hospital administrators, often conform to complex visual sterotypes about nurses. They make it appear natural that nurses are assistants to others, led by others, and under the control of others. These stereotypes reflect powerful ideological positions that are rarely expli- cated. Balmer’s pictures show us nurses that are indepen- dent, whose relationships are marked by their equality rather than their inequality - the ‘natural’ order of things is turned on its ear.

Too often, I believe, nurses ignore and misuse their visual history. I believe that few nurses are aware of the effects of negative imagery on nurses and nursing.

Because photography has been allied with objectivity and truth, it is a difficult medium to critically engage. When archival photographs of nurses are shown at confer- ences, there is rarely any discussion of the original context, or the reasons for production. They are treated as though they are windows on the world. As Rima Apple2 believes, we should always ask whose window. This lack of critical inter- rogation allows misleading claims to be made and ignores the important original meanings. Like all other sources of historical information, images require critical engagement and cross checking.

Mable Balmer’s images, unlike probably thousands of other nurses’ photographs, have been saved from obscurity

and probable destruction by their serendipitous inclusion in an historical exhibition.

As a profession, nursing should value its visual past. The ignorance and devaluing of nursegenerated photographs is a denial of our past and present. By ignoring how nurses have seen their work, we are left with views of how other people have seen us.

Visual history is no longer the exclusive preserve of the powerful, to be seen in museums and galleries. Images of nursing, like Balmer’s, give nurses an opportunity to see and situate themselves in a past - our past, As John Berger3 pointed out, a people or class that is divorced from its own past is far less free to act as a class or people than one which has been able to situate itself in history.

REFERENCES

Degens P. Robert Sajent Balmer. Privately published: State Library of NSW, 1986. Apple R. Image or reality? Photographs from the his- tory of nursing. In: Jones AH (ed.) . Images of Nurses. A Diebal Memorial Volume: University of Texas, 1989. Berger J. Wiys of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting Corporation and Penguin Books, 1972.

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