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Dorthea Dix
Dorthea Dix fought for improving the conditions in which mentally ill patients had been placed after a visit to the East Cambridge County Jail in 1841. Because of her efforts, the treatment of the mentally ill in the United States as well as Europe changed dramatically. -
Clara Barton
Clara Barton organized a relief program for Civil War soldiers while living in Washington, D.C. in 1861. These efforts led to her founding the American Red Cross in 1881. -
Linda Richards
Linda Richards became America’s first trained nurse in 1873 after her completion of Dr. Susan Dimock’s program at the New England Hospital for Women and Children. She went on to work for Bellevue Hospital in New York City, where she created the first system for charting and maintaining individual patient records. -
Mary Eliza Mahoney
Mary Eliza Mahoney became the first African-American registered nurse in America in the year 1879. She was one of the original members of what would become the American Nurses Association, and she cofounded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. -
Lavinia Dock
Lavinia Dock compiled the first manual of drugs for nurses entitled "Materia Medica for Nurses" in 1890. She sought to better the healthcare of impoverished Americans, and she played a large role as a contributing editor to the American Journal of Nursing. -
Mary Ann Bickerdyke
Mary Ann Bickerdyke became known as “Mother Bickerdyke” during the Civil War for the devotion and care she showed towards Union soldiers. Beginning in 1891, she took medical supplies to soldiers in Cairo, Illinois and insisted on staying after seeing the conditions of the medical camp. She was eventually hired by the U.S. Sanitary Commission, and continued her efforts throughout the Civil War. -
Lillian Wald
Lillian Wald coined the term “public health nurse” in 1893 in reference to nurses who worked with the poor and middle class instead of inside a hospital. Due to her efforts in public health, she was elected the National Organization of Public Health Nurses first president. -
Isabel Hampton Robb
Isabel Hampton Robb was a well-known nursing reformer who served as the superintendent of nurses at John Hopkins Hospital. While working there, she published "Nursing: Its Principles and Practice for Hospital and Private Use" in 1894. She also helped to found the Nurses Associated Alumnae, which later became known as the American Nurses Association, and became its first president. -
Mary Adelaide Nutting
Mary Adelaide Nutting became the first woman to hold a professorship at Columbia University in 1907. She was also the first university professor of nursing in the world. -
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger published a pamphlet entitled "Family Limitation" in which she coined the term “birth control” and called for the legalization of contraception in 1914. She founded the Birth Control Research Bureau in 1923, which later became known as Planned Parenthood. -
Annie Goodrich
Annie Goodrich established the United States Student Nurse Reserve in 1918. Later on, she became the first Dean and professor of Yale’s School of Nursing. -
Mary Breckinridge
Mary Breckinridge established the Frontier Nursing Service in 1925 to provide healthcare to the isolated areas of the Appalachian Mountains, one of America’s poorest regions. Nurse midwives of the FNS lowered the area’s infant mortality rate dramatically. Her efforts introduced a new system of rural healthcare to America. -
Ida V. Moffett
Ida V. Moffett organized Alabama’s first unit of the Cadet Nurse Corps in 1943 to help with the growing shortage of nurses. She also helped gain state accreditation for Alabama’s first four-year collegiate nursing program at Tuskegee University, and the first national accreditation in the state of Alabama at the Birmingham Baptist School of Nursing. -
Lillian Holland Harvey
Lillian Holland Harvey initiated the first baccalaureate degree nursing program in the state of Alabama at Tuskegee Institute in 1948. She was the Dean of Nursing for three decades there. She served on the American Red Cross Advisory Committee on Nursing Service as well as the Nursing Advisory Committee of the Kellogg Foundation. -
Hildegard Peplau
Hildegard Peplau introduced the “nurse-patient relationship” idea in her book "Interpersonal Relationships in Nursing," which was published in 1952. She established the first post-baccalaureate nursing program at Rutgers University. She is also the only person ever to have held the title of both executive director and president of the American Nurses Association. -
Dorothea Orem
Dorothea Orem first published her theory in 1959, which became known as the Self Care Deficit Nursing Theory. Her theory states that nurses are there to provide care when patients cannot provide care to themselves. -
Virginia Henderson
Virginia Henderson published a book entitled "The Nature of Nursing" in 1966. This book made her famous for her definition of nursing which states that “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.” -
Martha Rogers
Martha Rogers published her book "An Introduction to the Theoretical Basis of Nursing" in 1970, which debuted her theory of “the science of unitary human beings.” Before doing so, she established and became the executive director of the state of Arizona’s first Visiting Nurse Service. -
Madeleine Leininger
Madeleine Leininger founded transcultural nursing at the University of Washington’s School of Nursing in1974. She is a pioneer nurse anthropologist as well as the founder of the "Journal of Transcultural Nursing", which she created to support the Transcultural Nursing Society. -
Jean Watson
Jean Watson founded the original Center for Human Caring in Colorado. The foundation of her theory is “the philosophy of science and caring,” which was published in 1979. She has also served as president for the National League of Nursing.
