Interview with Sylvia Barker, RN by Richard Steele

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Reference code

US AA107.INT082

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Title

Interview with Sylvia Barker, RN by Richard Steele

Date(s)

  • 1995-11-08 (Creation)

Extent

5 cassettes

Name of creator

(1914-2014)

Biographical history

Sylvia M. Barker, MA, RN, CNNA lived from 1914-2014 and died a few months short of her 100th birthday. She was a graduate of The Mount Sinai Hospital School of Nursing, Class of 1936 and spent almost her entire career at Mount Sinai. As a clinical nurse, Sylvia Barker spent many years in the area of pediatric nursing. She then moved to nursing administration, with special expertise in the areas of risk management and labor relations. She was well known for her work with many professional organizations and her commitment to advancing the profession of nursing.

Sylvia M. Barker was born September 11, 1914 in upstate Schuylersville, New York and came to New York City in 1933 to attend nursing school at The Mount Sinai Hospital. She stayed on at the Hospital after graduation, serving on the wards and then as an Instructor of the Nursing of Children and then Nursing Arts in the School. During this time she received her Bachelor of Science degree from Teacher's College, Columbia University (1947). She married briefly and moved to Chicago in 1948, returning to New York in 1950 when she enrolled full-time at Teacher's College for a Masters in Nursing Education. In 1951, with her new degree in hand, she re-joined the Mount Sinai staff as the Supervisor in Pediatrics and remained in that role until 1966 when she joined the Nursing Administration as the Assistant Director, Inservice Education. In 1972 she was made Associate Director of Nursing as well as the Acting Director of Nursing for an interim period while a new Director was recruited. Gail Kuhn, RN, arrived at Mount Sinai in September 1972, and Miss Barker worked closely with her for the next 22 years.

Over the years Sylvia Barker honed her skills -- and reputation -- as a dedicated nurse administrator always working to make nurses, and the profession of nursing, better. She, along with Dr. Gail Kuhn Weissman, spent many hours at the labor negotiating table - a rarity for a woman in the early 1970s -- and many additional hours overseeing the policies, procedures, and documentation that undergird the modern practice of nursing in a large hospital. She had a keen eye for detail and was very organized. These personality traits played a role in her developing an interest and expertise in the area of bylaw writing. As a member of many organizations - professional, personal and church-related -- she was often responsible for ensuring that the organizational details were correct.

A career as long and distinguished as Sylvia Barker's is often rewarded with honors and awards. Such was the case for her. She received the Jane Delano Distinguished Service Award from District 13, the New York State Nurses Association (1982); the Distinguished Membership Award from the American Nurses Association (1998); the first annual Distinguished Alumnae Award (1990) and the Crystal Apple award from The Mount Sinai Hospital School of Nursing Alumnae Association (1991). In 1994 she received the R. Louise McManus Medal for Nursing Service and then in 2008, the R. Louise McManus Award for Distinguished Service to Nursing, both from Teacher's College, Columbia University.

Sylvia Barker officially retired from The Mount Sinai Hospital in 1986. She assumed the title of Consultant for the next eight years and cut back her hours to only three days each week. This allowed her long weekends to travel and time to spend on her professional and personal interests. She had always been actively involved with the Methodist Church and in particular with the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew. She sat on many boards and committees and was committed to the Church's guiding principle of “justice and reconciliation for all persons regardless of age, race, economic or marital status, gender or sexual orientation.”

After her second official retirement in 1994, Sylvia continued with her many interests. This included sending many of her personal archives to the Foundation of the New York State Nurses Association Inc. in Guilderland, NY starting in 1993. She also wrote three volumes of memoirs, starting in 2001, called S.M.B.: A Memoir. These joined a volume on the history of nursing at The Mount Sinai Hospital, The Sinai Nurse, written with Margery Lewis, RN, and published on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Hospital in 2002. After a serious fall in 2010, she was confined to her home, and was well cared for there by her friends, and supported by her community. Sylvia M. Barker died March 15, 2014.

Name of creator

Biographical history

Richard Steele was the Mount Sinai Medical Center Archivist in the 1990s.

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Scope and content

This is a recording of the oral history of Slyvia Barker, MA, RN, CNNA conducted by Richard Steele, in a series of five visits, spanning from November 8th, 1995 to December 19th, 1995.

Tape 1 discusses Ms. Barker’s background and the beginning of her 60-year career at Mount Sinai, including her hometown, her first days at the School of Nursing, and what her friends would do for fun in their free hours. She shared anecdotes about doctors, as well as the two Heads of Nursing Miss Greener and Miss Warman. She goes on to describe how she became Head Nurse of Ward U and an instructor at the School of Nursing, and also discusses her two-year stint at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago.

In Tape 2, she comments on the significance of nursing residences in creating a community for nurses. She talks about her close friend Blanche Gubersky; the demographics of the community Mount Sinai served in the 1940s; the courses and programs of the time; Mrs. Cynthia Kinsella and the closure of the Nursing School. She goes on to discuss risk management, personnel management, her relationship with Gail Weissman, and the unionization of Mount Sinai Hospital through Local 1199 and the State Nurses Association.

In Tape 3, Ms. Barker outlines the milestones in Gail Weissman’s tenure and the Alumni Association including its bookkeeper, “The Oaks” (the nurses’ residence in New Rochelle, New York) and their relationship to the Archives at Mount Sinai.

In Tape 4, she discusses the changes she has observed in nursing practices at Mount Sinai including: length of stay; technologies in nurseries; stethoscopes; intra-muscular injections; administration of oxygen; nurse practitioners; diagnostic procedures; procedure books and manuals; teaching techniques in nursing education; and resurgences of historical remedies.

In tape 5, she talks about Drs. A. A. Berg, Bela Shick, and Richard Lewisohn; group nursing; semi-private and private care; Jack Martin Poliorespirator Center and Dr. Horace Hodes; changes in the workday and work schedules; and finally, changes in staff demographics, including men in nursing and the first Black nurses at Mount Sinai.

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This material open for research. Please contact the Archives for more information (MSArchives@mssm.edu).

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This material has been digitized. Transcript is available.

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Copyright is held by Mount Sinai. Please contact the Archives (MSArchives@mssm.edu) for more information.

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      Materials reflected in the Archives are historical. As such, they may contain language and references that are inappropriate, including racial or sexual stereotypes that are not consistent with the positions, norms, and values of the Mount Sinai Health System community. These have been retained in our online collections in order to fully represent the materials in their original context.

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