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Dorthea Dix
Created the first generation of American mental asylums; The hospital, named in honor of Dorothea Dix, opened in 1856. Founded the first public mental hospital in Pennsylvania, the Harrisburg State Hospital, and later in establishing its library and reading room in 1853. -
Mary Ann Bickerdyke
Known as "Mother Bickerdyke" by Civil War troops, Bickerdyke pushed the often lazy or corrupt medical officers to do a more efficient job, bettering the war hospitals. Later, the hospital ship SS Mary A. Bickerdyke was named in her honor. -
Linda Richards
At the age of 15 Linda was one of five students that was enrolled at the University of Zurich and had been trained for surgery there. She later returned to Boston in 1878 to work at the Boston Hospital where she established a nurse training school. -
Clara Barton
Known as "Angel of the Battlefield," she also founded the American Red Cross on May 21, 1881. -
Isabel Hampton Robb
She implemented an array of reforms that set standards for nursing education. Most of these standards are still followed today. -
Lillian Wald
She was the founder of the Henry Street Settlement. Lillian Wald is widely regarded as the founder of visiting nursing in the United States and Canada. -
Mary Adelaide Nutting
Nutting served as head nurse for Johns Hopkins Training School for Nurses. She later became the world's first nursing professor at Columbia University in New York. As a promoter of bettering schools, she was named the honorary president of Florence Nightingale International Foundation. -
Lavinia Dock
She wrote Materia Medica for Nurses, one of the first nursing textbooks. She was also secretary of the International Council of Nurses for more than 20 years. -
Mary Eliza Mahoney
Mahoney was America's first black professional nurse. In 1909, Mahoney gave the welcome address at the first conference of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN). In recognition of her outstanding example to nurses of all races, NACGN established the Mary Mahoney Award in 1936. -
Margaret Sanger
As a nurse in lower eastside New York, Sanger saw the negative effects of surprise or unwanted pregnancies on womens' health and their families. In 1912 she gave up nursing to dedicate her time to promoting birth control and it's positive effects against societal will. -
Mary Breckinridge
She became a nurse due to the loss of her first husband and two children. She joined the American Committee for Devastated France after WWI, and later went to London for midwifery courses. She started the first American school to train and certify midwives. She started the Frontier Nursing Service in Appalachian Kentucky to help poor people in the mountains. -
Annie Goodrich
She developed, and in 1924 became dean of, the first nursing program at Yale University. -
Hildegard Peplau
She was a nursing theorist whose seminal work Interpersonal Relations in Nursing was published in 1952. Dr. Peplau emphasized the nurse-client relationship as the foundation of nursing practice. At the time, her research and emphasis on the give-and-take of nurse-client relationships was seen by many as revolutionary. -
Dorothea Orem
She was a nursing theorist and founder of the Orem model of nursing, or Self Care Deficit Nursing Theory. It is particularly used in rehabilitation and primary care settings where the patient is encouraged to be as independent as possible. -
Virginia Henderson
She holds twelve honorary doctoral degrees and has received the International Council of Nursing's Christianne Reimann Prize, which is considered nursing's most prestigious award. Henderson was funded to direct the Nursing Studies Index Project from 1959 to 1971. The outcome of this project was publication of the four-volume Nursing Studies Index, the first annotated index of nursing research. -
Lillian Holland Harvey
Harvey completed her own doctorate of education degree from Teachers College at Columbia University. In 1978, she was the first person named Dean Emeritus by Tuskegee University. -
Ida V. Moffett
She was the first woman involved in achieving school accreditation, in forming university- level degree programs for nursing, in closing substandard nursing schools, in organizing hospital peer groups, in licensing practical nursing, and in starting junior college-level degree programs for nurses. 1968: Birmingham Baptist Hospitals School of Nursing name changed to Ida V. Moffett School of Nursing -
Madeleine Leininger
She was the dean of nursing at the University of Washington. She is recognized as the founder of transcultural nursing, which became a program at UW in 1974. She sought to prove nurses must understand the cultural background of patients. -
Jean Watson
Theorised the theme of caring being conprised as 10 carative factors. They focus on the spiritual subjective aspects of nurses and patients. -
Martha Rogers
Rogers invented the science of unitary man. This stated that nursing is humanistic and humanitarian. Nursing is also portrayed as concerned with nature and human development.
