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Dorothea Dix
Honored in the nursing profession as an American scholar, educator, and crusader, Dorothea Lynde Dix earned universal renown for her interest, activity, and pioneer work for reform of mental institutions and psychiatric care. Dix began her drive for improvement in the care of the mentally ill in Massachusetts in 1841. During the next 20 years, she carried the crusade to Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and into the south and west. Although she had no formal nurses training, Dix establishe -
Clara Barton
In April 1862, after the First Battle of Bull Run, Barton established an agency to obtain and distribute supplies to wounded soldiers. She was given a pass by General William Hammond to ride in army ambulances to provide comfort to the soldiers and nurse them back to health and lobbied the U.S. Army bureaucracy, at first without success, to bring her own medical supplies to the battlefields. Finally, in July 1862, she obtained permission to travel behind the lines, eventually reaching some of th -
Mary Ann Bickerdyke
Mother Bickerdyke, was a hospital administrator for Union soldiers during the American Civil War.She became chief of nursing under the command of General Ulysses S. Grant, and served at the Battle of Vicksburg. When his staff complained about the outspoken, insubordinate female nurse who consistently disregarded the army's red tape and military procedures, Union Gen. William T. Sherman threw up his hands and exclaimed, "She outranks me. I can't do a thing in the world." -
Linda Richards
America's first trained nurse, Linda Anne Judson Richards, has long been recognized for her significant innovations in the nursing profession. Richards, who graduated from the New England Hospital for Women and Children in 1873, introduced the concept of keeping patient records, such as nurse's notes and doctor's orders. She also instituted the practice of nurses wearing uniforms. Richards added another "first" to her professional record when she became the first stockholder in the American Jour -
Isabel Hampton Robb
The American Nurses Association's first president, Isabel Adams Hampton Robb, was the nursing profession's prime mover in organizing at the national level. In 1896, Robb organized the group known as the Nurses' Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada. The group was renamed the American Nurses Association in 1911. Earlier, in 1893, Robb gathered together a nucleus of women who were superintendents of schools and founded the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nu -
Lillian Wald
Champion of the urban poor, Lillian D. Wald was a visionary leader and outstanding humanitarian. In 1893, two years after graduation from the New York Hospital Training School for Nurses, Wald founded the forerunner of the Henry Street Settlement. Henry Street eventually evolved into the Visiting Nurse Service of New York City. For more than 40 years, Wald directed the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service, at the same time tirelessly opposing political and social corruption. -
Mary Adelaide Nutting
American nurse and educator, remembered for her influential role in raising the quality of higher education in nursing, hospital administration, and related fields.In 1894 she became superintendent of nurses and principal of the school.In 1899 an experimental program in hospital economics was established at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York City. Nutting taught part-time in the program from 1899 to 1907. -
Lavinia Dock
A staunch advocate of legislation to control nursing practice, Lavinia Lloyd Dock is also remembered for her outstanding contributions to nursing literature. She graduated from Bellevue Training School for Nurses in 1886 and soon after became night supervisor at Bellevue. As both student and supervisor, Dock became aware of the problems students faced in studying drugs and solutions. As a result, she wrote Materia Medica for Nurses, one of the first nursing textbooks. In addition to serving as -
Mary Eliza Mahoney
America's first black professional nurse, Mary Eliza Mahoney is known not only for her outstanding personal career, but also for her exemplary contributions to local and national professional organizations. Mahoney inspired both nurses and patients with her calm, quiet efficiency and untiring compassion. In 1909, Mahoney gave the welcome address at the first conference of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. NACGN established a award in her name because of her example to nurses -
Annie Goodrich
Known as a crusader and diplomat among nurses, Annie Warburton Goodrich was constantly active in local, state, national, and international nursing affairs. Goodrich, a graduate of the New York Hospital Training School for Nurses, served as president of the American Nurses Association from 1915 to 1918. She developed, and in 1924 became dean of, the first nursing program at Yale University. She was responsible for developing the program into the Yale Graduate School of Nursing ten years later. -
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger was an American birth control activist and the founder of the American Birth Control League (which eventually became Planned Parenthood). Although she initially met with opposition, Sanger gradually won some support for getting women access to contraception. In her drive to promote contraception and negative eugenics, Sanger remains a controversial figure.In 1916, Sanger published What Every Girl Should Know. -
Virginia Henderson
Virginia Avenel Henderson, MA, was an American nurse, researcher, theorist and author.The International Council of Nurses presented her with the first Christianne Reimann Prize in June 1985, aged 87. She was also an honorary fellow of the UK's Royal College of Nursing.She graduated from the Army School of Nursing, Washington, D.C. in 1921. She graduated from Teachers College, Columbia University with a M.A. degree in nursing education. -
Mary Breckinridge
Breckinridge turned to nursing to overcome the travails of her children’s deaths and her divorce, joining the American Committee for Devastated France. Since no midwifery course was then offered in the United States Breckinridge returned o the United States in 1925 and on May 28 of that year founded the Kentucky Committee for Mothers and Babies, which soon became the Frontier Nursing Service. -
Martha Rogers
She received her nursing diploma in 1936 and her Bachelor of Science degree in Public Health Nursing form the George Peabody College in Nashville in 1937 and then became a public health nurse in rural Michigan where she stayed for 2 years before returning to further study. In 1945 she earned her master’s degree from Teacher’s College Columbia University, New York. She then became a public health nurse in Hartford, CT, advancing from staff nurse to acting Director of Education. After this she est -
Lillian Holland Harvey
Harvey was credited with being a crusader for unrestricted professional recognition across the state and nation. She weathered the difficult times of racial discrimination and segregation during the 1940's. Among her many honors were the Award for Distinguished Achievement in Nursing and the American Nurses' Association Mary Mahoney Award; The Alabama State Nurses' Association established the annual Lillian Holland Harvey Award in her honor. -
Ida V. Moffett
"Mrs. Moffett", as she was known, was an iconic symbol of nursing care and leadership for Baptist Health System for more than 70 years. Mrs. Moffett served at Princeton Baptist Medical Center the majority of her career and was a mentor to more than 4,000 nurses during her lifetime. She served as the head of nursing for the Baptist hospitals from 1941 to 1970 and believed that "nothing takes the place of the personal touch." -
Hildegard Peplau
Hildegard Peplau, the "mother of psychiatric nursing," was a true pioneer in the development of the theory and practice of psychiatric and mental health nursing. Her achievements, including her revolutionary work in patient-nurse relationships, are valued by nurses around the world and her ideas have been incorporated into virtually every nursing specialty and into the practices of other health care professionals. Peplau introduced the "nurse-patient relationship" idea 40 years ago, a time when -
Dorothea Orem
In 1959, she first published her theory in “Guides for Developing Curricula for the Education of Practical Nurses.” The last Copy was published in 1999 -
Madeleine Leininger
Dr. Madeleine Leininger is the foundress of the worldwide Transcultural Nursing movement. She remains as one of nursing's most prolific writers and the foremost authority throughout the world in the field of cultural care. She is a pioneering nursing theorist, first published in 1961. Her contributions to nursing theory involve the discussion of what it is to care. Most notably, she developed the concept of transcultural nursing, bringing the role of cultural factors in nursing practice into -
Jean Watson
She is founder of the original Center for Human Caring in Colorado and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. She previously served as Dean of Nursing at the University Health Sciences Center and is a Past President of the National League for Nursing. The foundation of Jean Watson’s theory of nursing was published in 1979 in nursing: “The philosophy and science of caring”
In 1988, her theory was published in “nursing: human science and human care”.
