St. Cloud Hospital School of Nursing graduates 1977, St. Cloud, Minnesota

This board includes individual portraits of students from St. Cloud School of Nursing, Class of 1977 and Director Sister Mary Jude Meyer, O.S.B. Between the years 1967 and 1986, the term 'hospital' was dropped from the school's name. The photographs are color prints mounted on blue-grey paper board, with identifications hand lettered in black ink. The first training school for nurses in St. Cloud, Minnesota, opened at St. Raphael's Hospital (predecessor to St. Cloud Hospital) in September 1908, one year after the state legislature mandated that all nurses working in Minnesota hospitals be licensed. As did the hospital, the education program operated under the auspices of the Sisters of the Order of Saint Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota. From its inception until it closed in 1987, the school was conducted as a three-year diploma program that blended academic and practical training for the nursing profession. In 1964, the school began admitting male and married students. The large format photo composite boards were first created in 1958 by two graduates of the school, Lidwina Kray and Marian Town, as part of the St. Cloud Hospital School of Nursing Alumnae Association celebration of the school's 50th anniversary. The boards were displayed in a book-like frame that allowed viewers to page through the history of the school's students. Each year following, graduating classes added their portraits to the 'book.' There are 50 boards in all.