Doctor Dan written by Helen Gaspard with illustrations by Corinne Malvern, was published by Simon and Schuster in New York, New York, in 1950.
Raised in New Jersey, Corinne Malvern (1901-1956) was a child actress who, along with her sister, performed in traveling plays, vaudeville and movies. After an accident in her teens, Malvern was forced to give up her acting career and later attended the Art Students League of New York. Proficient in watercolor, pastel, paint, pencil and ink she launched a career as a commercial artist and was known for her fashion illustrations and magazine covers. Shortly after, she teamed up with her sister, a children’s author, and began drawing children’s books, including seventeen for the Little Golden Book series, including Doctor Dan, Nurse Nancy, How Big?, Susie’s New Stove, and 5 Pennies to Spend.
Doctor Dan the Bandage Man and Nurse Nancy are examples of innovative display and marketing techniques. Simon and Schuster paired with Johnson and Johnson to promote the latter’s brand-name “Band-Aids” and targeted one of its likeliest consumers, children. Boys and girls would sport Band-Aids in colorful shapes of stars, hearts, circles and flowers from samples included in the pages of the book, all the while learning the basics of first aid.
Both books illustrate traditional attitudes toward gender roles in the 1940s and 1950s: The boy is “Doctor Dan,” while the female character is “Nurse Nancy.” These stereotypical images stand in stark contrast to the social upheaval that would emerge in the 1960s, challenging and altering perceptions of gender roles and civil rights.
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