Article

Cadet Nurse Corps

Illustrated image of two young white women with dark hair and red lipstick who appear to be the same woman. One wears a blue uniform and one a white uniform. Both have a red and white cross insignia with the words “Cadet Nurse” on their left shoulder.
“Be A Cadet Nurse: The Girl With a Future.” Cadet Nurse Corps recruitment poster, 1944.

United States Office of War Information, US Government Printing Office

During World War II, more than 100,000 American women served their country as members of the United States Cadet Nurse Corps. The program averted a shortage of nurses. Many participants saw it as a chance to serve their country while earning valuable career training.

Creating the US Cadet Nurse Corps

After the United States entered World War II, military and civilian authorities became concerned about a lack of nurses. Lawmakers and hospitals worried that they might have to draft nurses into the military. A nursing shortage would also harm patients on the home front—both during and after the war.

Ohio congresswoman Frances Payne Bolton introduced the Bolton Nurse Training Act to address the shortage. The act created the United States Cadet Nurse Corps (CNC). In June of 1943, Congress approved the law and appropriated $65 million for the program’s first year. Nurse and administrator Lucile Petry became its director.

The law’s two-part strategy was simple: first, pay existing nursing schools to improve and accelerate their programs. Second, pay promising nursing students to attend training. Cadets had to pledge to serve in a military or essential civilian role for the duration of the war.

Recruitment and Programming

To qualify for the Cadet Nurse Corps, participants had to be age 17-35 with a high school diploma and good grades. Once accepted to a nursing school, cadets received scholarships, room and board, and a stipend of $15-$20 per month throughout training. Nursing schools had to speed up their coursework so cadets could earn degrees in just 30 months. Schooling included the fundamentals of nursing in medicine, surgery, obstetrics, and pediatrics.

Cadet Nurse Corps recruitment materials emphasized that the program would allow young women to serve their country while preparing for a stable career. Posters showed attractive young women wearing the Corps’ uniform and insignia. “A Lifetime Education FREE!” the text read. “Be A Cadet Nurse—The Girl With A Future.” Fashion designers created crisp dress uniforms for the Corps. The uniforms were central to the image of the sharp, modern, and patriotic cadet nurse. The program’s image reassured young women that nursing work meshed with a traditionally feminine identity.

A young East Asian woman in a white nurse’s uniform adjusts the pillow of another East Asian woman lying in a bed.
Nurse Aiko Hamaguchi and patient Toyoko Ioki, Manzanar Relocation Center, California, 1943.

Photograph by Ansel Adams, courtesy Library of Congress.

Diversity and Discrimination in the CNC

The overwhelming majority of cadet nurses were white women. Men in the nursing profession were barred from the Army and Navy Nurse Corps until the 1950s. The Navy did recruit male nurses and allow them to serve in that role, while the Army assigned them to other duties or placed them in lower ranks than women.[1]

While 3,000 nurses of color found opportunities through the program, their paths were not easy. Black nurses faced widespread discrimination in the US military. Despite the fears of a nursing shortage at the beginning of the war, the Army had rejected thousands of trained Black nurses who volunteered to serve. The few who were accepted had to live, work, and socialize in segregated conditions. White colleagues and members of the public targeted them with racist remarks. Commanding officers often assigned them the most undesirable duties. Many Black nurses had to take care of Nazi prisoners of war, a task they found deeply offensive.[2]

The Bolton Act forbade nursing schools from discriminating based on race or religion. However, in practice, many schools continued to bar students of color.[3] Mabel Keaton Staupers, a Black nurse and leader of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN), lobbied to improve these conditions. She and other leaders worked hard to oppose job discrimination.

Despite the injustice of Japanese American incarceration during WWII, an estimated 200 Japanese American women managed to join the Cadet Nurse Corps as well. Most were Nisei, a term meaning “second generation” that refers to people born in the United States whose parents had immigrated from Japan. In fact, CNC leaders actively recruited women from incarceration camps across the country. The program offered them an opportunity to leave the camps. Like Nisei men who chose to enter the military, some Nisei nurses may have felt that they could prove their loyalty and patriotism through their service. However, like African American cadets, these women also experienced discrimination. Many nursing programs refused to admit them.[4]

“The doors weren’t opening for me,” a nurse named Kiyo Sato, who had been incarcerated at Heart Mountain Relocation Center, recalled in an oral history interview.

“I wanted to get into nursing. There was Johns Hopkins, Case Western, and Yale. They all turned me down because of my color. … I wrote back to my three schools: ‘My brother and all the others are fighting to uphold democratic principles and I don’t understand a school of your prestige to have this kind of policy.’ And lo and behold they all sent me application forms.”[5]

Impact and Legacy

The Cadet Nurse Corps operated from 1943 until its closure in 1948. During that time, approximately 1,125 accredited schools participated, and more than 120,000 nurses graduated. Many went on to a long career in nursing and remained proud of their wartime service. Cadet nurses worked hard training and caring for patients. They were frequently assigned to care for returning soldiers and sailors at veterans' hospitals, such as Walter Reed in Washington, DC.[6]

“It was a difficult time to take care of these people because we had such long hours,” recalled Marjorie J. Patak, a CNC graduate who worked at Bellevue Hospital in New York City. “If we had a day shift, we would get a call that there was no one to relieve you and we would have to work a full next shift. And that’s why so many of the girls became ill. And many left.” But, she continued “it was a wonderful program. It was a wonderful program because it provided nurses to this country for many, many years.”[7]

View a lesson plan based on this article here.

Article by Ella Wagner, PhD, Cultural Resources Office of Interpretation and Education. This article was funded by the National Council on Public History's cooperative agreement with the National Park Service.

Tags

Last updated: September 7, 2023