# Enlist in a Proud Profession! (1943), the Cadet Nurse Corps portrait

Enlist in a Proud Profession! is a 1943 U.S. Public Health Service poster for the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps, signed Edmundson. A young woman in a grey cadet uniform looks upward, and a panel offers "A Lifetime Education—Free! If you can qualify" (NAID 514214).

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      Enlist in a Proud Profession! Join the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps

      Enlist in a Proud Profession! (1943), the Cadet Nurse Corps portrait
      1943 U.S. Public Health Service poster for the Cadet Nurse Corps, signed Edmundson, offering a free nursing education to those who qualify. NAID 514214.

## Techniques named on the archive record

Glittering generalitiesTransfer
      Date1943Made byU.S. Public Health Service, Federal Security Agency (U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps); artist EdmundsonMediumPosterCountryUnited StatesRegimeRoosevelt AdministrationNARANAID 514214; Record Group 44SourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceU.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters , retrieved October 4, 2026SourcePublic domain (U.S. government work) U.S. Public Health Service, Federal Security Agency (U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps). National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-726A (NAID 514214).
      Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records.

      Full record at propagandaarchive.org

  Enlist in a Proud Profession! is a 1943 U.S. Public Health Service poster for the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps, signed Edmundson. A young woman in a grey cadet uniform looks upward, and a panel offers "A Lifetime Education—Free! If you can qualify" (NAID 514214).

## What the poster prints

The archive describes a painted head-and-shoulders portrait of a young woman in the grey Cadet Nurse uniform with red shoulder tabs, her eyes lifted, set against a blue field. A shoulder patch reads "Cadet Nurse." A blue panel carries the offer, and the foot of the sheet tells the reader where to ask.

Enlist in a Proud Profession!

JOIN THE

U.S. CADET NURSE CORPS

A Lifetime Education-

FREE!

IF YOU CAN QUALIFY

FOR INFORMATION

GO TO YOUR LOCAL HOSPITAL

OR WRITE U.S. CADET NURSE CORPS, BOX 88, NEW YORK, N.Y.

[signature:] Edmundson

[imprint:] U. S. PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE   FEDERAL SECURITY AGENCY

Transcription in the FRAME record. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. NAID 514214, local id 44-PA-726A, Record Group 44.

## Who issued it

The U.S. Public Health Service, then part of the Federal Security Agency, issued the sheet for the Cadet Nurse Corps. The artist signed as Edmundson; the record gives no first name. The archive holds a second version of the same poster with the cadet in profile, which is why this page names the portrait in its heading.

## How to read it

The archive tags two methods. "A proud profession" is a glittering generality: a warm phrase that asks to be felt rather than tested. The uniform and badges are transfer, lending a nursing school the look of military service.

Under the gloss, the offer is concrete. A free education, conditional on qualifying, with a hospital or a post-office box to write to. That is a real exchange put before a free person, and the sheet does not hide the condition. It says "if you can qualify" in capitals. The word "enlist" borrows from the armed forces, but nothing on the sheet says a cadet was drafted or bound beyond what she signed.

The upward gaze is the one piece of pure sentiment here. It turns a recruit into an ideal. Readers can enjoy the painting and still read the small type, which is where the terms live. For other 1943 sheets recruiting women, see Enlist in the WAVES and The More Women at Work. A health sheet from the same agency is Keep Out Malaria Mosquitoes. The essay on the Roosevelt administration places recruiting sheets like this one inside the wider war government.

## Sources

- FRAME object record, Enlist in a Proud Profession! Join the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps, 1943. U.S. Public Health Service, Federal Security Agency (U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps); artist Edmundson.

- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, NAID 514214, local id 44-PA-726A, catalog record, retrieved by the archive 4 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (U.S. government work).

Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/enlist-in-a-proud-profession-cadet-nurse-corps-portrait-1943/