Vintage 1960s Licensed Practical Nurse Decal 🩺 LPN Caduceus Embla Crest Foil Sticker

Remember Licensed Practical Nurse Decals? ⚕️ Licensed Practical Nurse L P N Self-Stick Decal, Embla Crest, Sealed on Its Card

Size: 3" ~ Factory sealed, little to no wear. ~ It is unknown if the adhesive still works, as that is usually the first thing to fail.

Embla Crest, a rare vintage 1960s Licensed Practical Nurse decal, is a highly collectible item. Factory sealed. Nobody's printing these 69-cent cards anymore, and once the last sealed ones are gone, they will be very difficult to acquire. These are likely the last of their kind in the world, serving as a poignant reminder of a time when we celebrated our community and their contributions.

The emblem is a winged caduceus standing on a red cross, and the letters read L P N right around the staff: a P on a little shield up top where the snakes cross, L on the left arm and N on the right. A tiny artist's mark hides down in the lower right corner.

It is unknown if the adhesive still works, as that is usually the first thing to fail. It may require assistance, also known as glue, to affix.

🏷️ What's Printed on It

• L P N (the P at the top of the staff, L and N on the arms of the cross)
• A small artist's mark in the lower right, too tiny to read
• Card: EMBLA CREST, EASY TO APPLY-SELF-STICK, 69¢

It's stapled to a salmon-red hang card and sealed in a clear sleeve. The back of the card is blank apart from the hang hole and the staple.

🐍 Neat Fact

Neat fact about this piece. And this is me, not AI. The caduceus was a symbol for Hermes, the Greek God, commerce, and negotiation throughout history. Somehow, in the USA, we got it confused with the Rod of Asclepius, which traditionally was a medical symbol but has only one snake and no wings. Even today, we still use these symbols interchangeably.

The government had a hand in that mix-up early on. The Marine Hospital Service took the caduceus as its seal in 1871. Then in 1902 the U.S. Army Medical Department formally adopted it, after Captain Frederick P. Reynolds kept pitching the idea to a Surgeon General who had turned him down several times. Once the Army wore it, the two snakes and the wings spread all over American medicine. A survey of 242 health logos found the split still holds. Professional associations went with the one-snake rod 62 percent of the time, and commercial outfits picked the caduceus 76 percent of the time.

👩‍⚕️ Where Practical Nursing Began

Practical nursing got its formal start at the YWCA in New York City in 1892. A year later the program became the Ballard School of Practical Nursing, named for Lucinda Ballard, an early benefactor. Students took a three-month course in caring for infants, children, the elderly and the disabled, along with cooking and nutrition. The school ran until 1949. Others followed, like the Thompson school in Brattleboro, Vermont, in 1907 and the Household Nursing School in Boston in 1918.

Growth came slow and then all at once. There were only 11 practical nursing schools in the country in 1930. Between 1948 and 1954, another 260 opened. By 1955 every state had a licensing law for practical nurses, and that license is what the three letters on these decals stand for. California and Texas went their own way and call it LVN, for licensed vocational nurse. Whatever the letters, the LPN has always been the one at the bedside, taking vital signs, dressing wounds and giving the everyday care that gets people through.

🗽 A Federation of Their Own

LPNs formed the National Federation of Licensed Practical Nurses in 1949, when only a few states licensed them at all. Ten years later the federation held its tenth annual convention at the Henry Hudson Hotel in New York, October 19 to 23, 1959, under the theme "Growth, Progress and Service." Eleanor Roosevelt wrote about it in her My Day column that October. By then, she noted, all states had some form of licensure. Her verdict was short and sweet: "These practical nurses fill a great need."

🏷️ Embla Crest

Embla Crest sold self-stick emblems like these on little hang cards for well under a dollar. I have one Embla Crest card that prints the Atlantic Emblem Co. name and Walterboro, South Carolina right under the Embla Crest banner. That card carries a five-digit ZIP code, and ZIP codes only started on July 1, 1963. Its phone number is in the 803 area code, which the Lowcountry gave up for 843 in 1998. Walterboro itself goes back to 1783, when Lowcountry planters went looking for a healthier place to spend the summer, away from the malaria on their plantations.

🏡 Display

It's a sweet gift for an LPN, a nursing student or a retired nurse, and it looks great framed right on its card.

Please refer to the pictures. It provides details and is considered part of the description for you.

Give this little piece of vintage memorabilia a place of honor in your room!