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Dorothea Dix
Dorothea Dix spent years advocating for improved treatment of patients who were mentall ill. She also advocated for improvement of prison conditions. Dix made an appeal to the government for five million acres to be used for the benefit of the mentall ill. This later became the basis for many improved mental facilities in the United States. -
Mary Ann Bickerdyke
Mary Ann Bickerdyke was a Union nurse in the Civil War. She became the best known nurse of the Civil War. By the war's end, had helped to build over 300 hospital. -
Linda Richards
Linda Richards is recognized as America's first professionally trained nurse. She also created the first system for charting and storing patient records. She also established many nurse training programs. -
Mary Eliza Mahoney
Mary Eliza Mahoney became the first African-American nurse to be registered in the United States. In 1908 she co-founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. -
Clara Barton
Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross in 1881 after her earlier efforts to bring supplies and support to soldiers in the Civil War. Barton was home educated and began teaching at age 15. -
Lavinia Dock
Lavinia Dock compiled "Materia for Nurses", considered the first drug manual for nurses. Also cofounded the Amerian Society of Superintendents Training Schools. -
Isabel Hampton Robb
Isabel Hampton Robb ws one of the founders of nursing theory. She developed a method for grading of nursing students. She was appointed leader of the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in 1889. -
Mary Adelaide Nutting
Mary Adelaide Nutting was a nursing educator and author. In 1907 she joined the staff at Columbia University and became the first Professor of Nursing in history. -
Lillian Wald
Lillian Wald founded the Henry Street Settlement, from which she taught hygiene and health to immigrant women. Wald coined the term "public health nurse" for those nurses who work outside of hospitals in poor areas. -
Annie Goodrich
Annie Goodrich organized the Army School of Nursing after serving as Chief Inspecting Nurse of the United States Army Hospitals. In 1923 she became the first Dean and Professor of Nursing at Yale University. -
Mary Breckinridge
Mary Breckinridge started the Frontier Nursing Service which provided care to people in poor mountain areas. She also founded the first school for the training and certification of midwives. -
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger was the founder of the American Birth Control League, which became the modern day Planned Parenthood. She was an activist for contraception who founded America's first birth control clinic. -
Lillian Holland Harvey
Lillian Holland Harvey was the Dean of Nursing at the Tuskegee Institute. Tuskegee became the first university in Alabama to offer a bachelor's degree in nursing under her leadership. -
Hildegard Peplau
Hildegard Peplau is known as the "mother of psychiatric nursing". During World War II, she was a member of the Army Nurse Corps and served at a psychiatric hospital in London. She developed a model called "Interpersonal Relations in Nursing". The model was used to improve relations between clients and nurses. -
Dorothea Orem
Dorothea Orem was a nursing teacher who developed the "Self Care Deficit NursingTheory". Orem's model for nursing explains that nurses must supply care when patients aren't able to care for themselves. -
Ida V. Moffett
Ida V. Moffett developed a program at the Birmingham Baptist School of Nursing that allowed students to attend courses at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Birmingham Baptist Hospital was later named after Moffett, in honor of her contributions to the nursing profession in Alabama. She was later appointed to the U.S. Surgeon General's Consulting Group which developed the Federal Nurses Training Act. The act apportioned $287 million for nursing education. -
Madeleine Leininger
Madeleine Leininger pioneered the concept of transcultural nursing, or bringing the cultural factors in the nursing profession into the thought of how to best provide nursing care. -
Virginia Henderson
Virginia Henderson is best known for her definition of nursing. To her, "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 the necessary strength, will or knowledge". She was presented with the first Christianne Reimann Prize in 1985. -
Jean Watson
Jean Watson developed the "Caring Theory". She later developed the Center for Human Caring in Colorado and the International Caritas Consortium based on her theory of caring. Her theory is still in use today. -
Martha Rogers
Martha Rogers is an American nurse who is known for her model of human interaction and the nursing process. She wrote her book, "An Introduction to the Theoretical Basis of Nursing", which was published in 1989.
