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Dorothea Dix
Born April 4, 1802. Established the first mental asylums in the US when she returned from abroad in 1840, she began by looking into treatment of mentally ill people which led to the state governments establishing better institutions. -
Mary Ann Bickerdyke
Born July 19, 1817. Known as "mother" Bickerdyke. She was a matron for soldiers during the Civil War. She made sure all hospital staff was competent and that conditions were as sanitary as possible. -
Linda Richards
Born July 27, 1841. In 1873, she was the first person to graduate from the first nursing school in the US. She also created an individual patient record keeping sytem. -
Mary Eliza Mahoney
Born May 7, 1845. In 1879, she graduated as the first black nurse in the US. She also co-founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses in 1908. -
Clara Barton
First founder and president of the American Red Cross. Born Dec 25, 1821. Worked during the Civil War caring for wounded soldiers. Known as "the angel of the battlefield." -
Isabel Hampton Robb
Born 1860. Appointed head of the new Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. Set many standards for nursing education. -
Lavinia Dock
Born in 1858. She was thrown in jail for picketing for suffrage at the White House. In 1893, founded the American Society of superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses. -
Lillian Wald
Born Mar. 10, 1867. In 1909, helped found the NAACP. She helped people in the lower east side of New York and made it a pretty widespread effort that gained financial support in 1906. She also wrote a couple of books about the experience. -
Margaret Sanger
Born Sept. 14, 1879. In 1916, she opened a birth control clinic for women in Brooklyn. She was imprisoned for the act. In 1921, she began the American Birth Control League. -
Annie Goodrich
She was the first dean and professor of Yale University's School of Nursing from 1923-1934. She was from New Jersey. Born Feb. 6, 1866 -
Mary Breckinridge
Born Feb 17, 1881. Trained in England to be a Nurse-midwife, upon returning she founded the Frontier nursing service in 1925. She helped many people with her numerous hospitals. -
Ida V. Moffett
Born April 9, 1905. Samford University's nursing school is named after her. She was appointed chair of Alabama's State Board of Nurse's Examiners and Registration. She helped gain the first accredited 4-yr nursing program in Alabama. And made advances in liscensing nurses. -
Lillian Holland Harvey
She started the first baccalaureate of nursing program in the state of Alabama in 1948. She was also dean of Tuskegee School of Nursing for many years. -
Hildegard Peplau
Born Sept. 1, 1909. One of the first nurses to emphasize that there was a nurse client relationship; that the nurse wasn't merely a servant of the doctor. She also published guidelines and stages of this relationship. -
Dorothea Orem
Born 1914. Developed a theory called the Orem Theory, the Self-deficit theory, or the self-care theory, says that nurses must provide care when the patient cannot. -
Martha Rogers
Born Mar. 12, 1914. Head of Nursing at New York University in 1954. Edited a science journal in 1963 and formulated ideas for her book, An Introduction to the Theoretical Basis of Nursing. -
Madeleine Leininger
Born July 13, 1925. Dean of University of Washington. Saw the need for understanding your patient's culture in order to provide care. Began a transcultural nursing program in 1974. -
Jean Watson
In 1979, established several guidelines/factors of the "science of caring." Has written several books about caring in nursing. -
Virginia Henderson
Born Nov 30, 1897. Well known for her definition of nursing, "The unique function of the nurse is to assist the individual, sick or well, in the performance of those activities contributing to health or its recovery (or to peaceful death) that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will or knowledge." Sometimes referred to as "the first lady of nursing." -
Mary Adelaide Nutting
Born Nov 1, 1858. Was in the first class at Johns Hopkins Training School in 1889, upon graduating she served as head nurse and later principal. In 1907, she moved to Teachers College at Columbia University and became the world's first professor of nursing.
