Pauline Brown Payne wore this uniform while attending the Homer G. Phillips Hospital School of Nursing in St. Louis, Missouri, in the 1940s. She graduated from the school in 1947 and worked as a nurse in the hospital from 1947 to 1952. During the era of segregation, the hospital served as one of the nation’s foremost training facilities for African American nurses and physicians.

In the early 1900s, the city of St. Louis had only one public hospital, which treated black patients in segregated, poorly equipped wards and barred black physicians from joining the staff. After years of campaigning by local residents, in 1937 the city built a new public hospital to serve the black population. Named for the attorney who led the construction effort, Homer G. Phillips Hospital offered modern medical care and specialty training programs that attracted black physicians from across the country and around the world. Although St. Louis city hospitals were officially desegregated in 1955, the hospital, familiarly known as “Homer G.,” continued to serve the community until financial and political pressures forced its closure in 1979.

The uniform and yearbook pictured above are now in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visitors to the museum can view these objects in the “Making a Way Out of No Way” exhibition.

Credits and Sources:

2013.90.2.1-.2 - Nurse's uniform dress worn by Pauline Brown Payne, 1944. Manufactured by: Angelica. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Pauline Brown Payne

2013.90.5 - The Guardian, 1968. Published by: Homer G. Phillips Hospital. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Pauline Brown Payne

"Homer G. Phillips Hospital-National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form." June 1982. Accessed January 5, 2016. http://dnr.mo.gov/shpo/nps-nr/82004738.pdf. 

H. Phillip Venable, “The History of Homer G. Phillips Hospital.” Journal of the National Medical Association. 12/1961; 53(6): 541-51. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2642069/pdf/jnma00694-0003.pdf

Michael R. Allen, “A Short History of Homer G. Phillips Hospital.” Ecology of Absence website, http://www.eco-absence.org/stl/hgp/history.htm

“Homer G. Phillips Hospital.” BlackPast.org. http://www.blackpast.org/aah/homer-g-phillips-hospital-1937-1979

“Phillips, Homer G. (1880-1931).” BlackPast.org. http://www.blackpast.org/aah/phillips-homer-g-1880-1931

“Ville, The (St. Louis, MO).” BlackPast.org. http://www.blackpast.org/aah/ville