Historical Nurses

By bebrown
  • Dorthea Dix

    Dorthea Dix
    Dix was commissioned as superintendent of Women Nurses for all military hospitals during the Civil War. Her authority was often challenged by physcians. In her early years she was a Boston school teacher known for her humanitarian efforts for the mentally ill.
  • Mary Eliza Mahoney

    Mary Eliza Mahoney
    Mahoney was the first African American nurse to graduate from the New England Hospital Program. This made her the first professionally trained African American nurse in the United States.
  • Linda Richards

    Linda Richards
    Richards was the first graduate of the New England Hospital Program, which was the first formal school of nurses. This made her the first professionally trained American nurse. She was the first student to enroll in the inaugural class of five nurses in the first American Nurse's Training School.
  • Clara Barton

    Clara Barton
    Clara Barton was vital to finding the American Red Cross in 1882. She served as a volunteer with the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment and also independently operated a large scale relief operation.
  • Isabel Hampton Robb

    Isabel Hampton Robb
    Robb was the president of the National League for Nursing. She also formed the grading policy for nursing students. Students needed to improve competency in order to receive qualifications.
  • Lillian Wald

    Lillian Wald
    Wald was the founder of the Henry Street Settlement, widely regarded as the founder of visiting nursing in the U.S. and Canada. She was also one of the seminal founders of NAACP.
  • Lavinia Dock

    Lavinia Dock
    With the help of Mary Nutting and Isabel Robb, she founded the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses of the United States and Canada.
  • Mary Adelaide Nutting

    Mary Adelaide Nutting
    Nutting taught at Columbia University and became the world's first professor of nursing.
  • Annie Goodrich

    Annie Goodrich
    Goodrich was appointed the first Dean of Yale School of Nursing and was the first woman Dean at Yale University. She also served as the president of the American Nurses Association.
  • Margaret Sanger

    Margaret Sanger
    Sanger was a major activist for birth control. In 1916, she opened a family and birth control clinic in Brooklyn, the first in the U.S. It was later raided and as punishment she served 30 days in prison. She later opened the first legal birth control clinic.
  • Mary Breckinridge

    Mary Breckinridge
    Breckinridge founded the Kentucky Committee for Mothers and Babies, which soon became the Frontier Nursing Service. She let nursing help overcome the tragedy of both her children's deaths and her divorce.
  • Ida V. Moffett

    Ida V. Moffett
    Organized Alabama's first unit of the Cadet Nurse's Corps. Samford University later named their Nursing School after her.
  • Lillian Harvey

    Lillian Harvey
    Harvey was the Dean of the Tuskegee University School of Nursing for almost 30 years. It was the first school to develop the Bachelor of Science degree in the field of Nursing.
  • Hildegard Peplau

    Hildegard Peplau
    Peplau emphasized the roles between nurse and client to be more interpersonal. These roles later helped theraputic nursing interventions.
  • Mary Ann Bickerdyke

    Mary Ann Bickerdyke
    Was called "mother" Bickerdyke by the troops, she challenged the works of lazy corrupt medical officers. She served in the wounded in the War for 19 battles.
  • Dorothea Drem

    Dorothea Drem
    Founded the Drem Model of Nursing, also known as the Self Care Deficit Nursing Theory. It states that nurses have to supply care when patients can not care for themselves.
  • Madeleine Leininger

    Madeleine Leininger
    She developed the concept of transcultural nursing, which was supported by nursing theory, research and practice.
  • Virginia Henderson

    Virginia Henderson
    Henderson was most noted for her definition of Nursing. She defined as "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 peacefulu death) that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will or knowledge and to do this in such a way as to help him gain independence as rapidly as possible".
  • Martha Rogers

    Martha Rogers
    Rogers developed the Science of Unitary Human Beings Theory and the Rogerian Model. Her theory included the theory of accelerating evolution, the theory of paranormal phenomenum, and the thoery of rhythemicities.
  • Jean Watson

    Jean Watson
    Watson developed the Theory of Human Caring to bring meaning and focus to nursing as a distinct health profession. The theory emphasizes the humanistic aspects of nursing in combination with scientific knowledge.