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Dorothea Dix
During the Civil War, Dorothea Dix was placed as the Union's Superintendent of Female Nurses June 1861. She also was known for her treatment of improving mentally ill patients, and she continued this work after the war was over. -
Mary Ann Bickerdyke
Bickerdyke dedicated most of her life to soldiers and veterans of the United States. She nursed wounded soldiers during the Civil War and helped set up more than three hundred hospitals to tend for soldiers that were sick or hurt. Many times she risked her life while treading the battlefield looking for wounded soldiers; furthermore, after the war, she continued to work with soldiers by helping them start a new life. -
Linda Richards
On September 1, 1873, Linda Richards was the first graduate from the nursing program at New England Hospital for Women and Children. After that, she made her mark in Japan, England, and the United States by working as a superintendent, visiting nurse, and nurse trainer. -
Mary Eliza Mahoney
In 1879, Mahoney became the first black registered nurse in United States history. She was one of the original members of Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States (had been predominately white), and she also played a role in the foundation of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN). -
Clara Barton
Clara Barton is known for being the founder of The American Red Cross. After seeing the International Red Cross program in Europe, Barton pushed for a similar program in the United States, leading to the American Red cross being founded on May 12, 1881. Prior to this foundation, Barton was known as the "angel" of Civil War battlefields. -
Isabel Hampton Robb
Isabel Hampton Robb helped found the Nurses Associated Alumni of the United States, which became the American Nurses' Association (ANA). She's known for establishing the grading policies for nursing students and also publishing Nursing: Its Principles and Practice. Robb was also the first superintendent of Johns Hopkins and one of the founders of American Journal of Nursing Company. -
Lavinia Dock
In 1890, Lavinia Dock wrote the Materia Medica, a drug manual for nurses. She was one who nursed the poor and also one who worked towards bettering the profession of nursing. After retiring from the nursing profession she became an advocate for things such as birth control, better working conditions, and other social controversies. -
Lillian Wald
Because of her deep passion for the poor and also immigrants, Lillian Wald founded the Henry Street Settlement in the East Side of Manhatton. She chose her career over a marriage, and wrote two books about the works of her life. Also, Wald contributed to the foundation of the NCAAP and is known for being the founder of the United States' nursing settlements. -
Mary Adelaide Nutting
Mary Nutting highly contributed to the advancement of nursing education, acquired many honors ,and held many high-seated positions during her lifetime. In 1900 she contributed to the founding of American Journal of Nursing, and later on she became the first president of State Association of Graduate Nurses. She tremendously impacted the nursing profession through her created programs involving nursing education, hospital administration, and public health. -
Margaret Sanger
Sanger was a nurse who is credited with the term "birth control." Seeing her mom's decline in health after having 11 children, Sanger believed it was very important to educate women about birth control, and even with the Comstock Act of 1873 being active, Sanger continued to write about birth control. In 1914 she founded the National Birth Control League, and in 1916 she established the United States' first clinic for birth control. -
Annie Goodrich
After introducing the new undergraduate nursing program at Yale University, Goodrich was appointed to the dean position by Adelaide Nutting because of her leadership skills and experience. In 1953 she was awarded the Yale Medal. -
Mary Breckinridge
In 1925 Breckinridge installed the United States' first rural helath care system that became a model to future systems. After this she created a a system of nurse-midwives, district nursing centers, and hospital facilities for poor neglected people in Kentucky. This would later be called Frontier Nursing Service, and it contributed to the 1929 beginning formation of the American college of Nurse-Midwives. -
Ida V. Moffett
Ida V. Moffett has been a major contributor to Alabama's health profession, and in 1934 she became the head nurse at Highland Avenue Baptist church. Throughout her lifetime she served the dual role of director of nursing to Birmingham Baptist and Highland, participated in the movement and implementation of licensed practical nurses, contributed in the developemnt of Alabama's first training program for the licensed nurses, and been a part of the graduation of over 4,000 nurses. -
Hildegard Peplau
Hildegard Peplau served on the Army Nurse Corps during World War II and also worked in London, England at a neuropsychiatric hospital. She is the only nurse who served as an executive director then president to the ANA; furthermore, she has beared the titles of founder of modern psychiatric nursing and also a mentally ill advocate. -
Lillian Holland Harvey
After graduating college from the Teachers College at Columbia University in 1948, the state of Alabama credits Harvey for the start-up of the its first baccalaureate program in nursing. The Tuskegee Institute was the site of founding the nursing program, and in 1957 the flourishing school was accredited by the National League for Nursing. -
Madeleine Leininger
Leininger is known as the person who founded transcultural nursing. In 1969, she became the dean of the School of Nursing at the University of Washington. She later on founded the transcultural nursing and wrote several books. -
Martha Rogers
Martha Rogers is known for publishing An Introduction to the Theoretical Basis of Nursing in 1970 that looks at the way humans interact and also the process of nursing. She also developed the Science of Unitary Human Beings that was unlike anything before in the nursing profession. -
Dorothea Orem
Dorothe Orem was a major nursing theorist and founded the Orem Model of Nursing, also known as "Self Care" Model of Nursing. Orem's Nursing: Concept of Practice was first published in 1971, and it defines nursing as an art, helping service, and a technology. Throughout her career she served as a nurse educator, staff nurse, administrator and more. -
Virginia Henderson
Henderson is famously 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 necessary strength, will or knowledge." Also she was one of the first to say that physician's orders aren't the only things that makes up nursing. -
Jean Watson
Jean Watson is the founder of the original center for Human Caring in Colorado, previously Dean of Nursing at the University Health Sciences Center ,and president of the National League for Nursing. In 1979, she first published Nursing: The Philosophy and Science of Caring and published it again in 1985. Her theory of Human Caring involves three elements: Carative Factors, Transpersonal Caring Moment, and Caring Moment/Caring Occasion.
