An explosion on the United States battleship Maine off the coast of Cuba in 1898 catapulted the country into a war against Spain. The issue of Cuban independence from Spain was interwoven with naval operations in the Philippines and the annexation of Hawaii, the Philippine Islands and Puerto Rico.

In all, 263,000 US soldiers, 25,000 naval troops and over 10,000 African American soldiers (serving in segregated units) fought in the war between February and August, 1898. But disease created more casualties than the war itself: 379 American men died in combat, yet over 5,000 succumbed to pneumonia, typhoid, malaria and yellow fever.

	Nurses on the home front in Georgia care for convalescents.

The United States was ill-prepared for the medical emergencies of tropical warfare and the need for trained medical personnel was urgent. The obvious solution to the military's need was to contract trained female nurses for temporary military service—and such a personnel pool existed. Following the successful wide-scale participation of female nurses in the Civil War, professional training schools emerged; three opened in 1873. Nursing developed into a firmly rooted profession by 1899 when more than 3,000 trained nurses had graduated from 515 training schools.

By the end of the war, an estimated 1,563 contract nurses had served in Army and Navy general hospitals, aboard the hospital ship Relief, in stateside camps, the Philippine Islands, Puerto Rico and Hawaii.

Visit our on-line exhibit to learn about their experiences.