Child’s Nurse Dressing-up Costume
Highland Museum of Childhood

This nurse dressing-up costume is typical of the uniform nurses wore during the 1940s and 1950s.   

Consisting of a blue dress, a navy and red cape, an apron, cap, and arm cuffs, it shows high levels of attention to detail. Aprons, caps, and arm cuffs were worn by the nursing profession at this time to help keep nurses and patients as clean as possible.  

The colour of a nurse’s cap sometimes determined what level or type of nurse they were. Children’s costumes like this show the reinforcement of traditional gender roles as this time, with women encouraged into caring roles but as nurses rather than as doctors.