Like all of you, each year I get one year older. It's easy to keep track of myself, as I am at the very peak of the age curve from the National Sample Survey of RNs (2000) that tells us we are all getting older and closer to retirement. Yup, I was part of that baby boomer crunch that hit nursing schools in the early '70s. Almost every nurse I worked with as a new grad was younger than 30. Today, only about 9 percent of our workforce is younger than 30. What a sea change!

While I am not one to live in the past, I have developed a certain fascination with the history of nursing. My mom has collected vintage nursing-related postcards for me, and I am desperately seeking to enlarge my collection of late-19th and early-20th century magazine covers of nurses.

As part of this blossoming hobby, I have learned obscure things about nursing that I never knew, or at least did not remember. Did you know that there is an audio recording, admittedly a poor one, of Florence Nightingale made in 1890 [available at www.bl.uk/collections/sound-archive/history.html]?

Given the events of 2001, it is important to realize the significant impact that our military and religious orders have had on the evolution of health care and the nursing profession. Knowing how our profession developed and recognizing the many influences along the way provide us insight and understanding into how we got to where we are today.

Many authors have contributed to the body of knowledge regarding the early development and history of nursing. I have listed some of my favorites below:

Nursing, the Finest Art: An Illustrated History by M. Patricia Donahue, Ph.D., RN (1985; CV Mosby)

Florence Nightingale: Mystic, Visionary, Healer by Barbara Montgomery Dossey (2000; Springhouse Corp.)

100 Years of American Nursing: Celebrating a Century of Caring by Thelma Schorr (1999; Lippincott)

Home Before Morning: The Story of an Army Nurse in Vietnam by Lynda Van Devanter (2001; University of Massachusetts Press)

We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese by Elizabeth M. Norman (2000; Pocket Books)

I suspect that as we search for answers to our modern-day challenges, we may find some old solutions staring back at us from the pages of these books. Some of the lessons that seem obvious in the pages of these books and others like them:

• Nursing has always been a knowledge profession, regardless of whether that knowledge is acquired in an academic setting. It is about what you know.
  
• It has and always will take the time and energy of today's nurses to create the nurses of tomorrow.
  
• Nurses have always known how to manage patient care and organize a hospital (clinics, etc.) in the best interests of the patients; why would you do it any other way?
  
• Health care has always been a lot more than just "a business" to both nurses and their patients. I am sure that goes for most other caregivers as well.

Let me know if you have any favorite books or sources in your collections.