Nursing Program in Cambridge, N.Y.

	The view from Mary McClellan Hospital in Cambridge, N.Y., ca. 1945. (Photograph courtesy of the George S. Bolster Collection of the Historical Society of Saratoga Springs)

As a college that trained young women to be self-supporting, Skidmore took a realistic attitude toward the job opportunities awaiting its graduates. In the 1920s, most American medical schools accepted only a token number of female candidates, but nursing was a growing profession and one where college graduates enjoyed higher status and consideration for administrative posts.

Skidmore opened a nursing program in 1922, in cooperation with Mary McClellan Hospital in nearby Cambridge, New York. The program took five years to complete, including two years at Skidmore and a variety of field placements in mental hospitals, visiting-nurse programs, and urban hospitals, in addition to the rural experiences provided in Cambridge and Saratoga.

The program attracted a small number of students at first, but by 1930-31 it included thirty-two students at various stages of completion. By 1942 that number had nearly doubled, and by 1945, under the pressure of the critical wartime need for nurses, Skidmore enrolled 152 nursing students in four classes.

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