"Third Harvard Unit is Off to France," May 20, 1916.

Dublin Core

Title

"Third Harvard Unit is Off to France," May 20, 1916.

Subject

World War, 1914-1918--Medical care.
Harvard Surgical Unit.
Wallace, M. Blanche (Mary Blanche), 1892-1979.
Great Britain. Army. No. 22 General Hospital (Camiers, France)
Cabot, Hugh, 1872-1945.

Description

Mary Blanche Wallace (1892-1979) of Woburn served as a nurse with the third Harvard Surgical Unit, working at General Hospital No. 22 from June 11, 1916, to June 9, 1917. She then returned to France in April 1918 as a member of the American Red Cross Nursing Service, working in hospitals through the end of the war. Blanche Wallis documented her experiences in two scrapbooks filled with newsclippings, photographs, ephemera and memorabilia.

According to the newspaper coverage, “The only identifying insignia that the surgeons and nurses got at the start, at least, were tags for their hand-baggage, containing their names and the number of their staterooms on board the steamer Andania; and white arm-bands, with the Gothic letters in crimson, “H.U.,” which stands for Harvard University, as well as for Harvard Unit.” Blanche Wallis is one of the nurses in the newsclipping; they all, along with Hugh Cabot, who was in charge of the third unit, are wearing the identifying arm badge.

Date Created

1916-05-20.

Format

text

Extent

1 newsclipping.

Type

text

Identifier

H MS b63.1, v.2.

Provenance

Gift of M. Blanche Wallace to the Archives of Harvard Medical School, 1971.

Files

0004151_dref.jpg

Citation

“"Third Harvard Unit is Off to France," May 20, 1916.,” OnView, accessed March 29, 2024, https://collections.countway.harvard.edu/onview/items/show/17936.