A Philadelphia Physician Encounters the Great War

Dr. George W. Norris (1875-1965), Pennsylvania Hospital Physician, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Fellow of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, served in wartime Europe, from May 1917 to December 1918. Dr. Norris's meticulous scrapbook, assembled in 1959, includes entries in a pocket diary, postcards, news clippings, and photos. Thanks to these sources, Dr. Norris creates an intimate account of his time at war, detailing an American physician’s experiences with not only treating the wounded but also with the daily horrors, deprivations, occasionally boredom and even beauty and humor that are entangled in the wartime endeavor.

View the full exhibit.