Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. MD Archives Blog

Thanksgiving at our hospitals

Nov 25, 2024

In the 1940s several of the hospitals in our system started monthly newsletters to keep the staff informed of hospital events and interesting news of individual staff members. They were created on 8×11 paper and featured colorful covers that represented the holiday or season of the month. In celebration of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, the Aufses Archives would like to present some of the covers, and related articles for your enjoyment.

This 1954 cover from the News of St. Luke’s (aka Mount Sinai Morningside), includes familiar harvest and pilgrim themes for the holiday.
Mount Sinai Hospital School of Nursing published their own newsletter called Cap and Bib. This 1955 holiday issue features a family-sized gobbler!
This News of St. Luke’s depicts a turkey getting its pre-holiday turkey trot checkup!
Mount Sinai Hospital School of Nursing later changed its newsletter’s name to Plaid Communique , and this 1969 issue highlights a connection between thankfulness and medical care.
This 1949 issue of Mount Sinai Hospital’s The Capsule depicts charming graphics and relates a lovely story of gratefulness expressed during the holiday season.

Hospital decorations, even then, were kept to a minimum on the floors, but dinning rooms often had holiday-themed centerpieces on tables, turkey dinners with all the fixings in staff cafeterias and on patient trays, which also included pumpkin or apple pie for dessert. St. Luke’s Hospital’s chapel also featured a altar centerpiece reflecting the autumn/ Thanksgiving season (below).

Newsletters featuring colorful covers, staff stories, photographs, and hospital news were very popular through the 1940s, 50s, and early 60s. However, in the mid-1960s the format of the newsletters changed to a newspaper format with a header across the top and news stories on the first page, instead of covers like these displayed above. Staff continued to be well informed about hospital events, the activities of various departments, and important news about colleagues, but sadly some of the charm of the early newsletters was lost in the transition.

From the staff at The Arthur H. Aufses, Jr., MD Archives to all our colleagues and readers, Happy Thanksgiving and our best wishes for the following holiday season and New Year!