ANCKER NURSES ALUMNI ASSOCIATION:

In order to get a complete history of the Ancker Nurses Alumni Association it is necessary to know something about the hospital which sponsored the nursing school, the nursing school itself, and finally something of the history of the alumni association. In 1872, the Ramsey County board of control (later called the county commissioners) authorized the purchase of a 10-room mansion from Dr. Stewart, one of the city's foremost doctors and three-time mayor, and officially established City and County Hospital in that mansion in 1873. Drs. Stewart and Charles Wheaton ran the hospital until August 1883, when the board elected Dr. Arthur B. Ancker hospital superintendent, a position he would hold for forty years. During his tenure Ancker was able to expand hospital facilities and services several-fold so that by the early 1920s City and County Hospital was one of the largest hospitals in the country. The hospital was renamed the Arthur B. Ancker Memorial Hospital in his honor after his death in 1923. The hospital saw five superintendents over the next 44 years with Dr. Fred Carter (1925-1935) and Dr. Thomas Broadie (1936-1967) having the longest tenures. In October 1965, a new nine-story hospital was built on the Jackson Street and University Avenue intersection northeast of downtown St. Paul, the West Seventh Street location abandoned (eventually taken over by the St. Paul school district), and the hospital renamed St. Paul-Ramsey Hospital. In 1977, the Gillette Hospital for Crippled Children moved out of their outdated facilities near Lake Phalen and into a new building on the St. Paul-Ramsey campus. That hospital was renamed Gillette Children's Hospital and the entire complex renamed to the St. Paul-Ramsey Medical Center, to reflect the expansion of services, even though the two hospitals remained operationally independent. In 1986 the St. Paul-Ramsey Hospital became a private, nonprofit facility no longer overseen by Ramsey County. A year later the hospital, clinic, and foundation were consolidated under common management. In September 1997 the complex became known as Regions Hospital.

The nursing school was established in 1891 as a two-year program, had its first graduate in 1893, and trained nurses for another 83 years until 1976, when its last class graduated. Training became a three-year program in 1902, and a separate nurses cottage was constructed in 1905. More than 2,600 nurses graduated from the Ancker School of Nursing. Mrs. Frances D. Campbell was supervisor of nursing education from 1900 to 1928, followed by Delphine Hines (1929-1933), Elizabeth Reynolds (1934-1946), Etta Lubberts (1947-1965), Minna Moehring (1966-1973), and Charlotte Tracy (1974-1976). The school accepted its first male students in 1968. Despite name changes to the hospital, the nursing school remained the Arthur B. Ancker Memorial School of Nursing until its close.

The Ancker Nurses Alumni Association was established in 1904, incorporated in 1935, and continued through 1999, 23 years after the last class graduated. Among the activities conducted by the alumni association were teas for the graduating class, sponsorsing of scholarships for student nurses and for continuing education of professional nurses, sponsorship of educational seminars, and hosting of an all-class homecoming every five years.

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The records of the Alumni Association are organized into the following ten major series: articles of incorporation and bylaws, minutes, financial records, committee records, correspondence and subject files, biographical files, yearbooks and newsletters, newspaper clippings and scrapbooks, address books, and photographs.

This collection contains the 1935 incorporation documents, as well as constitution/by-laws booklets printed in 1920 (of a predecessor association), 1952, 1960, 1969, and 1979. A folder of proposed revisions to the bylaws dating from the 1960s through the late 1990s also is included. Minutes exist for the years 1921-1933 and for 1949-April 1964 (volume), but otherwise contain only scattered dates and are thus incomplete. Financial records consist of audit reports, bank books, budgets, financial statements, and treasurer's reports for a number of consecutive years for each category, but again, most information is widely scattered and incomplete. Records of various association committees are also incomplete, but illustrate some of the association's activities through the years including the operation of scholarship funds and hosting of all-class homecomings.

The correspondence and subject files are alphabetically arranged by topic and include information from continuing education seminars sponsored by the association, some files on Ancker Hospital history, lists of the graduates of the school (1893-1976), and several alumni association address books. Also included are banquet and dinner dance programs, a guest book, a calendar with historic photographs, and general correspondence of the association, 1923-1999. There is also a folder with nursing examination questions from the Minnesota State Board of Nursing Examiners (1925) and notes taken at a national nursing convention in 1924 by Helen O. Anderson. Several items that might be considered records of the nursing school include graduation notices and programs, school prospectuses and bulletins (1911/1913, 1950, 1960, 1974/75), and booklets on Ancker Hospital nursing procedures (1930, 1960).

The biographical files contain information on Dr. Arthur Ancker and several other long-time hospital staff, but otherwise consist of letters, photographs, newspaper clippings, diplomas, and related papers of nursing school alumni. These files are alphabetically arranged and include the year of graduation. Class yearbooks, which went by various names, exist for the years 1911-1912, 1925-1929, 1933-1935, 1957-1961, and 1964-1973. There also is a volume entitled Ancker memories in historic perspective, 1891-1976, which seems to have served as the yearbook for the last graduating class. The unnamed alumni association newsletter contains a few issues from 1928 and 1929, but thereafter seems fairly complete until publication ceased in 1999. Of the two scrapbooks donated, one was in such poor shape that pages have been photocopied and arranged chronologically as newspaper clippings. The other scrapbook has been left intact, but also is in fragile condition. Both scrapbooks contained news clippings from local papers dating from the 1920s to the mid-1960s.

The photographs, some of which are oversize, consist of group photographs of Ancker Hospital nurses and staff; nursing school class photos, mainly 1925 through 1972; and some alumni association events. While most of the photographs date from the 1940s and 1950s, several images of City and County Hospital and its nurses (1890s) appear. Loose snapshots and a photo album from the 1920s also appear. Photographs of nursing school events, such as the capping ceremonies, classroom scenes, nurses with patients, and graduation ceremonies as well as social events such as glee club, yearbook staff, teas, and the basketball team predominate. Of special note are oversize photographs of Ancker Hospital nurses and staff (1924), the nursing school classes (1933), Mrs. Frances D. Campbell (head of nursing education, 1900-1928), a nurses procession 1920 (rolled item), and a scrapbook of photographs, 1930s-1960s.

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These documents are organized into the following sections:

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Ancker Nurses Alumni Association Records. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession number: 15,852; 16,797

Processing Information:

Processed by: Rich Arpi, April 2003; additions by David B. Peterson, October 2013

Catalog ID number: 990017380490104294

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The Museum Collections Department of the Minnesota Historical Society has several of the Ancker Hospital nursing dolls.

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Hospitals -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul.

Nurses -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul.

Nursing schools -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul.

Nursing students -- Minnesota -- Saint Paul.

Organizations:

Ancker Hospital. Training School for Nurses -- Alumni and alumnae.

Ancker Hospital. Training School for Nurses - History.

Ancker Hospital. School of Nursing -- Alumni and alumnae.

Ancker Hospital. School of Nursing -- History.

City and County Hospital (Saint Paul, Minn.).

Ancker Hospital.

St. Paul-Ramsey Hospital and Medical Center.

Types of Documents:

Minute books.

Newsletters.

Scrapbooks.

Photographs.

Yearbooks.

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