Materials in this collection were compiled by Arvella Vowell while serving as historian for the Disctrict 8 Nursing Association and were donated in 2009 to the UT Health Science Center Libraries - University Archives by the Texas Nurses Association - District 8.
Arvella Bentley Vowell was born in 1904 in Arkansas. Her first experience in nursing was helping her mother take care of her eleven brothers and sisters. It was this experience that created a desire in her to help others.
In 1929, Vowell, began the three-year nurses training program at Sealy Hospital in Santa Anna, Texas. She graduated in 1933 and began a 44 year career in nursing. She worked as a private nurse, school nurse, psychiatric nurse and polio nurse.
After a long career as a nurse in San Antonio, she retired in 1976. Vowell was named historian of Chapter 8 of the Texas Nurses Association, the oldest professional nursing association in Texas, in 1976. She was the driving force behind the creation of a collection of historical nursing materials documenting the history of District 8. Vowell died in 1997 at the age of 93.
The Texas Nurses Association District 8 - Arvella Bentley Vowell Collection contains photographs, nursing school uniforms, surveys, diplomas, nursing school pins, reports, poems, news clippings, an antique bed pan, and textbooks. The collection documents the history of nursing in Texas.
The Collection is organized in 16 boxes in 10 series as follows:
The collection is open for research use. Materials may be viewed in the reading room of the P. I. Nixon Medical Historical Library, located on the 5th floor of the Briscoe Library at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
Visitors are required to wear white gloves provided by library staff when handling nursing uniforms.
Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
The Texas Nurses Association, District 8 Records, MS 102, Archives, University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries Special Collections (Finding aid:
Arvella Bentley Vowell Nurses Collection, 1943-1994, MS 6, University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries Special Collections (
Donated in 2009 to the University Archives of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio by the Texas Nurses Association - District 8.
[Identification of item], in the Texas Nurses Association-District 8-Arvella Bentley Vowell History Collection, University Archives, UTHSC Libraries, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
Finding aid created by: Mellisa DeThorne and modified by Anne Comeaux, July 2012. Collection formerly called the Ruth Stewart Collection.
A number of items are stored flat on shelves in the archives in room 5.082
(Private Duty Nurses)
A number of items are stored flat on shelves in the archives in room 5.082
A number of items are stored flat on shelves in the archives in room 5.082. Most are unframed.