Scrapbook owned by Lt. Louise Lomax, Army Nurse Corps: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A scrapbook compiled by Army Nurse Corps (ANC) 1st Lieutenant Louise Virginia Lomax and later annotated by her daughter, Pia Winters Jordan. The scrapbook has a blue cover with three silver-colored airplanes flying at center. At the top of the cover is an image of a U.S. Army Air Force pilot badge. Printed in white text on the bottom left corner is [TUSKEGEE ARMY FLYING SCHOOL]. There are sixty-three (63) pages total containing photographs, invitations, programs, and newspaper clippings, accompanied by stickers and handwritten labels. The contents of the scrapbook relating to Lomax's career, friends, colleagues, patients, Tuskegee Airmen and wives of Tuskegee Airmen, and social life during her time stationed at Tuskegee Army Air Field (1943-1946) and then at Lockbourne Army Air Base. Highlights include Lomax's World War II Victory Medal, a letter from the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, Inc. on discrimination faced by Lomax in her employment, portraits of Lomax and group portraits of Lomax with fellow nurses, photographs and clippings of her friends and colleagues, a poem written to Lomax by a patient, an autographed photograph of Ralph Cooper, and newspaper clippings on Lomax's transfer from Lockbourne to for St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington for training in psychiatric nursing.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 1943-1953
• Created by: Louise Virginia Lomax, American, 1920 - 2011
• Subject of: Tuskegee Airmen, 1941 - 1946
• Subject of: United States Army Air Force, American, 1941 - 1947
• Type: scrapbooks
• Medium: metal and ribbon; silver and photographic gelatin on photographic paper; ink on paper and newsprint; adhesive
• Dimensions: H x W x D: 126 3/4 × 10 1/16 × 1 5/16 in. (322 × 25.5 × 3.4 cm)
• Place depicted: Tuskegee, Macon County, Alabama, United States, North and Central America
• Place depicted: Columbus, Franklin County, Ohio, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Aeronautics
• Topic: Holidays and festivals
• Topic: Medicine
• Topic: Military
• Topic: Nursing
• Topic: Photography
• Topic: Segregation
• Object number: 2022.42.1
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Pia Marie Winters Jordan in memory of her mother, First Lieutenant Louise Virginia Lomax Winters, Army Nurse Corps; and her uncle, Sgt. Henry James Lomax, U.S. Army
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: Unknown - Restrictions Possible Rights assessment and proper usage is the responsibility of the user.