During World War I, Brooklyn nurses served in the American Red Cross and the US Army Nurse Corps in the same positions as nurses from other cities. These dedicated women worked in dangerous conditions, providing vital care to wounded soldiers in evacuation hospitals near the front lines, facing considerable difficulties, including gas attacks and constant bombing.
It was not without reason that they were called “angels of the front line,” as they provided first aid and saved countless lives during the conflict. For more details on women’s participation in World War I, visit brooklyn-yes.com.
American nurses in World War I
Brooklyn nurses served in the US Army Nurse Corps during World War I, joining more than 20,000 other American nurses who provided critical care to wounded soldiers both at home and abroad. They worked in hospitals near the front lines, providing emergency care for a wide range of injuries and illnesses, often in grueling conditions that they had to endure for long periods of time.
At the same time, these courageous women were denied officer rank and received lower salaries than soldiers. Of course, their heroic service and important role in treating the wounded was appreciated and eventually recognized with medals. But all this came somewhat later. At the beginning of the war, there were only 403 nurses in the Army Nurse Corps, and the chief surgeon called for volunteers to join.
Women who worked in hospitals and private practice responded, and many had undergone training. Those who were already working in hospitals could join the corps through the newly created system of army base hospitals and through the American Red Cross.
Starting in 1917, more than 22,400 American women left their homes and families to join the ranks of army nurses. Most of them had never left their hometowns. Few had ever visited other countries. At the same time, more than 10,000 women sailed from American ports during blackouts across an ocean teeming with enemy submarines.
They slept in hammocks, waded through knee-deep mud, lived in wooden barracks, and sometimes washed their hair in their own helmets. These American women humbly endured rain and snow, illness and injury, the danger of bombing and gas attacks, and cared for more than 320,000 sick and wounded American soldiers.
At that time, nurses usually had to work about 50 miles behind the front lines. But some served in field hospitals that were much closer to the front. Others worked in tents and bombed-out churches. The wounded were brought here in rickety ambulances and laid on hay.
In mobile surgical units a mile or two from the front lines, nurses worked alongside doctors to provide emergency care to seriously wounded soldiers. They helped treat soldiers with gunshot and shrapnel wounds, gangrene and sepsis, poison gas burns, infections, trench foot, radiation exposure, and post-traumatic stress disorder. At the beginning of the last century, this disorder was called shell shock.
Emily Austin McLaughlin
One such courageous woman was Brooklyn native Emily Austin McLaughlin. She was born on July 12, 1874. Her father, Charles McLaughlin, was a schoolteacher, and according to the 1880 United States Census, he was already the principal of a Brooklyn school. He was of Canadian descent. Emily’s mother was Emily Austin. According to her death certificate, she died in 1880 of consumption, now known as tuberculosis. Young Emily was left without a mother when she was only six years old.
As we know, tuberculosis is a terrible disease that is frightening to die from. Perhaps watching her mother die from this infection influenced young Emily, who chose to make helping the sick her mission and career. In 1896, she graduated from the Farrand School of Nursing at Harper Hospital in Detroit.
In 1898, she enlisted as an army nurse, working at Letterman Army Hospital in Presidio, San Francisco. All this took place during the Spanish-American War. As is well known, it lasted more than three months. The cause of the discord between Spain and the United States was colonial domination and influence in the Caribbean and Pacific regions.
This is how the girl gained her first combat experience. After the war ended, she continued to live and work in San Francisco until at least 1900. But between 1900 and 1902, she moved to Detroit, where she began working at Harper Hospital. By 1911, Emily McLaughlin had become the headmistress of Farrand School, the same educational institution she had graduated from in 1896.
World War I
But then came 1917, when, after nearly three years of neutrality, the United States finally entered World War I. Hundreds of Americans were mobilized for the military campaign in Europe. This fate did not spare the nurses from Harper Hospital. Those who left New York first for England and then for France ended up in Dijon, where the US Army Base No. 17 was located. Emily McLaughlin became the head nurse in charge of a staff of sixty-five nurses. They remained under her leadership in France until March 1919.
The heroism and dedication of American nurses on French soil did not go unnoticed. In 1919, Emily McLaughlin and another nurse, Flora MacGregor, were awarded by the French for their bravery in the battle of Soissons. The battle took place in the summer of 1918 and was initiated by the French with the help of Great Britain and the United States, who struck the German lines. This battle was crucial, as after it, the German army was unable to regroup and remained on the defensive until the end of the war in November.
As for Base Hospital No. 17, where Emily McLaughlin was the head nurse, it was one of two hospitals that received approval from the Chief Surgeon of the United States in 1919 for its work in facial reconstruction and surgery during the war. Before World War I, facial injuries were the result of a single bullet wound or knife cut.
But during the war, advances in weaponry, including artillery shells specially filled with shrapnel, led to horrific facial injuries. As a result, the advances in facial surgery that became possible as a result are considered to be the birth of modern plastic surgery. And Brooklyn native Emily McLaughlin was at the forefront of these innovations.
Unconventional and remarkable
Emily McLaughlin’s life was unconventional for a woman of her era, but it demonstrates the role women played in the armed forces and in the development of medical practice during World War I.
Although many women of her era sought traditional marriage and family life, Emily never married. This conscious choice allowed her to focus exclusively on her career as a nurse, where she was able to influence the lives of hundreds of other people as a nurse and healer.
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