Many, but not all, nurses' caps had coloured bands which indicated level of training. At the Hamilton and District Regional School of Nursing, for example, first year students wore white bands (1999.267.35), second year students, pink bands (1999.267.37), and graduates, black bands (1999.267.36). Black invariably indicated the graduate nurse, while other colours were used to indicate the first and second year of training. Some say that the black band was introduced as a memorial to Florence Nightingale. The use of bands may also have had its origin in the bands or stripes on military uniforms, and certainly the graduate black had a military look. But interestingly, undergraduate colours such as pink, turquoise or yellow were more traditionally feminine.