Biography
The Vassar Training Camp was organized under the auspices of the National Council of Defense, with funding from the American Red Cross "to establish and maintain a school of science applied to nursing at Vassar College during the summer of 1918." The intent was to draw female college graduates into the critically undermanned ranks of wartime nurses. Four hundred and thirty young women from 117 different colleges gathered for "a summer school for intensive theoretical training of hospital nurses..." A prestigious faculty recruited for the summer from major eastern universities gave instruction in anatomy, physiology, bacteriology, chemistry, dietetics & cookery, hygiene, practical nursing, history and social aspects of nursing, elementary materia medica, psychology, and oversaw physical training. The Camp ran from June 24 to September 13, 1918. The trainees then went on to regular hospital training programs around the country, where their time to graduation with a nursing diploma was reduced from the normal three to approximately two years.
Birdie May Adair was a member of this select group. In her May 14, 1967 letter to History & Special Collections librarian Martha T. Gnudi, Miss Adair said, "That Camp was probably the most interesting and worthwhile event of my whole life."
Miss Adair began her hospital nursing training at Boston City Hospital, but had to drop out with a bad case of diphtheria. In 1920 she began training at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles and received her nursing diploma from that institution. After further study in public health nursing she became a "teaching nurse" in San Pedro High School from 1924 to 1930, and from there she moved to Franklin High School in Los Angeles. In subsequent years she taught in the Nursing Department of Los Angeles City College, and assisted at the Red Cross Teacher Training course at UCLA. She ostensibly retired from nursing in 1957, but continued in substitute teaching in nursing arts. (Some biographical information was drawn from "Vassar's Rainbow Division, 1918; the Training Camp for Nurses at Vassar College," by Gladys Bonner Clappison, 1964.
From the guide to the Collection of items pertaining to the Training Camp for Nurses at Vassar College, 1918, 1918-1921, (University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library History and Special Collections Division)
