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Mary Ann Bickerdyke
Mary Ann Bickerdyke was the best known Civil War Nurse. She traveled with Grant and his army establishing over 300 hospitals along their journey. After the war, she worked for the Salvation Army and became an attorney, helping Union veterans with legal issues. -
Dorothea Dix
Dorothea Dix became the Union's Superintendent of Female Nurses during the Civil War. She was called "Dragon Dix" because she was stern and brusque, often clashing with military personnel. However, army nursing was markedly improved under her leadership. -
Linda Richards
Linda Richards was the first professionally trained American nurse. She established nursing training programs in the United States and Japan. She also created the first system for keeping individual medical records for hospitalized patients. -
Mary Eliza Mahoney
Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first black to study and work as a professional trained nurse in the United States. She co-founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. For a period of time, she served as director of the Howard Orphan Asylum for black children. She is commemorated by the Mary Mahoney Award for significant contributions in advancing equal opportunities in nursing for minority groups. -
Clara Barton
Clara Barton was the founder of the American Red Cross. She is also known as a Civil War Nurse. -
Isabel Hampton Robb
Isabel Hampton Robb was one of the founders of modern American nursing theory. Her most notable contribution to the system of nursing education was the implementation of a grading policy for nursing students. She was appointed head of John Hopkins School of Nursing, and was president of the American Nurses Association. She was also one of the founders of the American Journal of Nursing. -
Lavinia Dock
Lavinia Dock compiled the first manual of drugs for nurses, Materia Medica for Nurses, after serving as a visitor nurse for the poor. She joined the Nurses settlement in New York, where she strove to improve the health of the poor and improve the profession of nursing. She was also associated with being an early advocate of birth control. -
Lillian Wald
Lillian Wald was the founder of the Henry Street settlement and the Visiting Nurse Service. She linked health care of children with that of nations, which made her a model of achievement. She was also one of the seminal founders of the NAACP because of her concerns of the horrendous treatment of African Americans. -
Mary Adelaide Nutting
Mary Adelaide Nutting played an influential role in raising the quality of higher education in nursing, hospital administration, and related fields. She was the first professor of nursing at Teacher’s College at Columbia University, where she led the Department of Nursing and Health. -
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger was an American birth control activist and founder of the American Birth Control League. She was also among the early influential contributors to relationship counseling in the United States. -
Annie Goodrich
Annie Goodrich was constantly active in local, state, national, and international nursing affairs. She was president of the American Nurses Association, Association of Collegiate Schools of Nursing, Professor of nursing at Teacher's College at Columbia University, and also established the Army School of Nursing. She became dean of Yale University's first nursing program. -
Mary Breckinridge
Mary Breckinridge established the Frontier Nursing Service in the Appalachian Mountains. She became an American nurse-midwife after traveling to Europe, where she was inspired to do so. She also established many private charitable organizations across America -
Ida V. Moffett
Ida V. Moffett was the first woman involved in achieving school accreditation, forming university-level degree programs for nursing, closing substandard nursing schools, and organizing hospital peer groups. The Baptist Hosptial, Ida V. Moffett School of Nursing, was named in her honor because of the many contributions she made to Alabama's healthcare profession. She was also head nurse of the second branch of Baptist Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. -
Lillian Holland Harvey
Lillian Holland Harvey was Director of Nursing Service at John A. Andrews Hospital and Dean of the School of Nursing at Tuskegee Institute. She developed the first baccalaureate of nursing program in Alabama. She also worked in and through professional organizations to advance the cause of black nurses and the nursing profession. -
Hildegard Peplau
Hildegard Peplau was a theorist who published "Interpersonal Relations in Nursing". She believed that the essence of theories is the creation of a shared experience. She also developed six roles to illustrate dynamic character roles typical to clinical nursing, which are: stranger, resource, teaching, counseling, surrogate, leader, and technical expert. -
Dorothea Orem
Dorothea Orem was a nursing theorist who published her theory in "Guides for Developing Curricula for the Education of Practical Nurses". She was the founder of the Orem model of nursing, better known today as the Self Care Deficit Nursing Theory, and also many other nursing concepts of practice. -
Virginia Henderson
Virginia Henderson was famous for creating a definition of nursing. Her definition states “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 that he would perform unaided if he had the necessary strength, will or knowledge”. She was also the first full-time nursing instructor in Virginia, and one of the first nurses to point out that nursing does not consist of merely following physician’s o -
Martha Rogers
Martha Rogers was a theorist, researcher, nurse, and author. She developed the Science of Unitary Human Beings. She was also the author of “An Introduction to the Theoretical Basis of Nursing”. -
Madeleine Leininger
Madeleine Leininger was a nursing theorist that developed the concept of transcultural nursing. She also founded the Journal of Transcultural nursing to support research of the Transcultural Nursing society -
Jean Watson
Jean Watson was the founder of the original Center for Human Caring in Colorado. She was a widely published author and theorist, and her focus was mainly on human caring and loss. She was also the recipient of several awards and honors.
