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Dorothea Dix
Dorothea Dix decided to follow her heart in 1848. She sent a letter to the United States Congress asking for five million acres of land to be used to care for the mentally ill. During her lide she helped found 32 mental hospitals, 15 schools for the "feeble minded", a school for blind people, and many training facilities for nurses. -
Linda Richards
Linda Richards came up with the way to keep individual medical records for patients. She was named the superintendent of the Boston Training Nurses School in 1874. She went on to create a school in Boston City Hospital in 1878. -
Clara Barton
Clara Barton worked at a hospital in Fredericksburg, VA caring for the wounded men that were participating in the Battle of the Wilderness. She is most widely known as the founder of the American Red Cross. -
Isabel Hampton Robb
Isabel Robb graduated in 1883 from the Bellevue Hospital Training School for Nurses. She was appointed the head of John Hopkins School of Nursing in 1889 and she also helped found the Modern American Nursing Theory. -
Lavinia Dock
Lavinia Dock trained to be a nurse at New York City's Bellevue Hospital. As her life continues she began to serve as a nurse to the poor. She is well known for completeing the first and very important manual of drugs for nurses called The Materia Medica for Nurses in 1890. -
Mary Eliza Mahoney
Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first African-American registered nurse in the U.S. She turned 33 in 1878, and was finally admitted as a student into a hospital's nursing program and was one of four who completed the program. In 1908 she became a cofounder of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses or otherwise known as the NACGN. -
Margaret Sanger
Sanger created the first birth control clinic in the United States in 1916., and the following year, she was arrested for "creating a public nuisance." After being arrested many times changes in laws gave doctors the right to give birth control advice and eventually birth control products to patients. Margaret also helped organize the first World Population Conference that took place in Geneva. Finally in 1942, Planned Parenthood Federation came into being. -
Annie Goodrich
Annie Goodrich attended New York Hospital's Training School for Nurses where she worked 12 hours a day and in the evening she would attend clinical lectures. She graduated and after several jobs including being chief inspecting nurse of the United States Army's hospitals, Annie evolved into the originator of the plan for the Army school of Nursing. -
Virginia Henderson
Virginia Henderson graduated in 1921 from the Army School of Nursing, Washington, D.C. Virginia Henderson's famous definition of nursing was "assisting individuals to gain independence in relation to the performance of activities contributing to health or its recovery". -
Mary Breckinridge
Mary Breckinridge established the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS) in 1925. This provided professional health care in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky, considered one of the countires poorest areas. Breckinridge ran the Frontier Nursing Service until her death in 1965. -
Ida V. Moffett
She was director of nursing at the two units of The Birmingham Baptist Medical Centers from 1941 until 1970. She was a nurse for 65 years and she strongly believed in the importance of how a patient is cared for. -
Martha Rogers
In 1945 she recieved her master’s degree from Teacher’s College Columbia University and became a public health nurse in Hartford, CT and eventually advanced from staff nurse to acting Director of Education. After this she became the Executive Director of the first Visiting Nurse Service in Phoenix, AZ. Martha Rogers was appointed Head of the Division of Nursing at New York University in 1954. -
Madeleine Leininger
Madeleine Leininger was appointed dean of the University of Washington, School of Nursing in 1969 and she remained as dean until 1974. She was also a nurse anthropologist. She founded the Journal of Transcultural Nursing in 1974. It supported the research of the Transcultural Nursing Society. -
Hildegard Peplau
Hildegard Peplau began to serve the ANA on September 5, 1969 as executive director and also as president at a later date. She served two terms with the Board of the International Council of Nurses. She is known today for being the founder of modern psychiatric nursing, an innovative educator, an advocate for the mentally ill, and author. -
Dorothea Orem
Dorothea Orem was the founder of the Orem model of nursing, or otherwise known as the Self Care Deficit Nursing Theory. This theory states that if a patient cannot provide care for themselves it is the nurses responsibility to supply care. Orem’s Nursing: Concept of Practice was first published in 1971 and republished many times after that. -
Jean Watson
Jean Watson is well known, especially at the University of Colorado where she holds the title of Distinguished Professor of Nursing. She accepted the Murchinson-Scoville Chair in Caring Science in 1999. This was the nations first endowed chair in Caring Science.
