Michelle Carrick won't buy scrubs that don't have pockets. "Nurses need them," said Carrick, a registered nurse at Jennings Center for Older Adults. In them she stows alcohol pads, scissors, adhesive ...

But nursing was changing: It was becoming a profession with standards of education, practice, behavior, and dress all its own. It is possible that as nurses began to see themselves as trained ...

Caps may have started out being utilitarian (containing or protecting the hair), but they rapidly became symbolic. Affiliated with a specific training school, a nurse's cap conveyed not only where she ...