I am thrilled to add this to my collection! A dollar pen in the style of a nurse’s pen is scarce indeed!
Dollar pens date from the 1930s up until 1942, and are named as such because they originally cost a dollar. These may have technically been marketed as Doctor’s Pens, but until I see some ads or catalog listings, I’m going to assume the may have been marketed towards nurses as well. (If you have information–contact me.)
No Antibiotics
Reflect on this: it wasn’t until 1942, –the last year that this pen was manufactured–that civilians began being treated with penicillin!
This pen may well have been used during a time before antibiotic therapy was available for clinical use! Imagine the orders that were written on patient charts during this time.
My mother–the R.N. who inspired this interest of mine in nurse’s pens, was hospitalized in 1933 with a ruptured appendix. Because there were no antibiotics, she painfully spent a year of her childhood in the hospital. Perhaps it was in that year the idea for being a nurse was put into her head.
Pens are more than writing implements. They are sociological artifacts!
What pen in your collection tells a story beyond the mechanics of mark making? -30-