These are some of my favorite nurse photos from The Commons section on Flickr. If you’ve never spent time perusing the commons on Flickr, I highly recommend it. It contains a vast amount of publicly archived photos from all over the world. The benefit of these photos is twofold. First of all, because all of the photos are held by public institutions, they are without a traditional copyright, which means they are free for you to use on your blog, website, or project.

Secondly, they are a fascinating source of history. Try a search for the keyword “nurse” and I guarantee you will soon be down a rabbit hole of history, as each photo has a story behind it. From the nurses of World War II, to the early tenement nurses, there is something interesting behind each photo.

Here’s my collection. You can also go to my flickr gallery to get the stories, background and sources on each photo.