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Dorothea Dix
Dorothea Dix aided and nursed wounded Union soldiers during the Civil War. She was placed in charge of all women nurses in army hospitals, and worked to remove the stereotypes of the time and prove that women nurses were just as capable as men. -
Mary Ann Bickerdyke
Mary Ann Bickerdyke nursed soldiers of the Civil War, using her knowledge of the importance of cleanliness and fresh living conditions to help improve war camps. -
Linda Richards
Linda Richards was the first graduate of a nurse-training program, making her America's first trained nurse. She also developed a system for charting and maintaining patient records. -
Mary Eliza Mahoney
Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first African-American registered nurse in the United States. One of the original members of the American Nurses Association. -
Clara Barton
Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross, which was inspired by her efforts in the Civil War giving aid and supplies to wounded soldiers. -
Lillian Wald
Lillian Wald founded the Henry Street Settlement in 1893 and taught health and hygeine to Manhatten's lower east side. -
Isabel Hampton Robb
Isabel Hampton Robb organized the Nurses' Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada in 1896, which later became known as the American Nurses Association. -
Lavinia Dock
Lavinia Dock made significant contributions to nursing literature, including History of Nursing, Volumes I-IV, I and II cowritten with Adelaide Nutting. She also wrote the American Journal of Nursing and Hygiene and Morality. -
Mary Adelaide Nutting
Mary Adelaide Nutting became the world's first professor of nursing at Teacher's College at Columbia University. She made contributions to nursing literature and promoted university nursing programs. -
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger was an advovate of birth control and founded the National Birth Control League. -
Annie Goodrich
Annie Goodrich was president of the American Nursing Association from 1915-1918, In 1924, she also became dean of the first nursing program at Yale University, among many other positions held throughout her lifetime. -
Mary Breckinridge
Mary Breckinridge established Frontier Nursing Service in 1925 which gave health care to the impoverished people of the Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky. -
Ida V. Moffett
Ida V. Moffett become a Registered Nurse in 1926 and dedicated her life to patient care. She was an Alabamian and the first woman involved in forming university- and junior college-level degree programs for nursing. -
Lillian Holland Harvey
Lillian Holland Harvey was dean of the Tuskegee Institute's School of Nursing, which she helped to become the first in Alabama to offer a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing, -
Hildegard Peplau
Hildegard Peplau published the theory of interpersonal relations in 1952, which involves the phases of developing the nurse-patient relationship and the challenges that come with it. -
Dorothea Orem
Dorothea Orem was the founder of the Orem model of nursing. This model, also called the Self Care Deficit Nursing Theory, states that nurses have to supply care when the patient can no longer care for themselves. -
Martha Rogers
Martha Rogers was head of the Division of Nursing at NYU, and wrote An Inrtoduction to the Theoretical Basis of Nursing. She stated that nurses should promote health and well-being to people wherever they are. -
Virginia Henderson
Virginia Henderson published the Nursing Studies Index which was the first annotated index of nursing research. -
Madeleine Leininger
Madeleine Leininger founded transcultural nursing, which involves nurses understanding the patient's background and culture in order to provide care. -
Jean Watson
Jean Watson developed the theory of human caring between 1975 and 1979, which defines caring from both the care-giver's perspective and also the one receiving the care.
