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Mary Ann Bickerdyke
Mary Ann Bickerdyke was a nurse for the Union Army in the Civil War who denounced the deplorable conditions that the soldiers were living in. She collected supplies and delivered them to the frent lines. she set up hospitals down the Mississippi and was greatly honored by the men she took care of. -
Dorothea Dix
After traveling the globe expounding the deplorabnle conditions afforded the mentally ill, Dorothea Dix was appointed Superintendent of Female Nurses of the Union Army. After her stint in the Civil War, Dorothea returned to her previous work of being the voice of the mentally ill and had a hand in opening 32 mental institutions. -
Linda Richards
Linda Richards was America's first trained nurse. She used her expertise to turn several floundering programs into excellent training programs. She created the first rmedical records reporting system for nurses that even the Nichtingale System adopted. -
Mary Eliza Mahoney
Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first African American registered nurse in the US. In 1908 she was cofounder of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. -
Clarissa "Clara" Harlowe Barton
Clara Barton, whose experience working with wounded soldiers in the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, led her to bring the International Red Cross movement to the United Stated. In 1905 The American Red Cross was given its final charter from Congress and Clara Barton led the organization for the next 23 years. -
Isabel Hampton Robb
Isabel Robb implemented grading policy for nursing student in which they would have to prove their proficiency and competency in order to receive qualifications. She published several texts and served in professional organizations. -
Lavinia Dock
Lavinia Dock compiled the first manual of of drugs for nurses, Materia Medica for Nurses. She worked with other notable nurses to improve conditions for the poor and wrote several texts and was notable as editor of the American Journal of Nursing. -
Lillian Wald
Lillian Wald worked with women, children, immigrants, and members of all ethnic and religious groups in hopes that they would realize America’s promise of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” She cared for sick residents in the Lower East Side of New York and is considered today as the founder of visiting nursing. -
Mary Adelaide Nutting
Mary Adelaide Nutting was the world's first professor of nursing. She was a noted historian, educator, and scholar. Along with Lavinia Dock, she authored the first two volumes of the four-volume History of Nursing. She was a strong advocate of collegiate education for nurses and was instrumental in developing these programs. -
Margaret Sanger
Margaret Sanger was instrumental in the birth control movement. Throughout the early 1900s she made notable headway in informing women about preventing pregnancy and their own sexuality. She founded several organizations and opened family planning clinics. Her career focused on reducing the need for poor women to have unwanted pregnancies and have self-induced abortions. -
Annie Warburton Goodrich
Annie Goodrich, while not particularly enjoying caring for the sick but wishing to become self-sufficient, began her nursing career in 1890. Throughout her career she was very active in various nursing affairs at all levels. She served as President in several organizations and taught at the collegiate level. She established the Army School of Nursing in 1918 and became dean of Yale University's nursing program in 1924. Under her direction it grew into the Yale Graduate School of Nursing. -
Mary Breckenridge
MAry Breckinridge established the Frontier Nursing Service. Nurses traveled on horseback and brought medical healp to rural areas in southeastern Kentucky. She is considered the first to bring burse midwifery to the US. -
Ida V. Moffett
Ida Moffett, who dedicated her life to providing quality care and standardizing nursing education, was the first woman involved in school accreditation, in setting up junion-college nursing programs, in licesning practical nursing, and in closing substandard nursing schools. The Baptist Hospital nursing school in Birmingham Alabama is named in her honor. -
Lillian Holland Harvey
Lillian Holland Harvey started the first baccalaureate of nursing program in the state of Alabama in 1948. She worked in and through professional organizations to advance the cause of black nurses and the nursing professional. -
Hildegard Peplau
Hildegard Peplau, known as the 'mother of psychiatric nursing', emphasized the nurse-client relationship as the foundation of nursing practice. Peplau's model has Six Nursing Roles and Three distinct Developmental Stages of the Nurse-Client Relationship.
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Dorothea Orem
Dorothea Orem created the General Theory of Nursing, which consists of three related theories; Self care theory, Self-care Deficit theory, and Nursing Systems theory. She also wrote several books regarding writing curricula for nursing students. -
Virginia Henderson
Virginia Henderson was the first person to define nursing in a way that clearly delineated it from medicine. 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 (or to peaceful 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, who shares a birthday with Florence Nightingale, worked as a public health nurse in Michigan and Connecticutt before going to the Division of Nursing Education at the New York University. While there she published An Introduction to the Theoretical Basis of Nursing. This view presented a drastic but attractive way of viewing human interaction and the nursing process. -
Madeleine Leininger
Madeleine Leininger is the founder of transcultural nursing; nursing in which nurses need to understand their patients’ culture and background in order to provide care. She has written/edited 27 books and is founder of the Journal of Transcultural Nursing. -
Jean Watson
Dr. Jean Watson is professor of Nursing at University of Colorado Denver. She is the founder of the Theory of Human Caring and is author/co-author of over 14 books dealing with caring and nursing practice.
