A Timeline to the History of Nursing
A Timeline to the History of Nursing
Nursing encompasses a broad history that spans many generations of caring for the sick, injured, poor and destitute. Early nurses were anyone who had a desire to help others, with no formal training involved. As the practice of nursing developed, many women trained to become nurses as a lifetime career, choosing to remain single to devote themselves entirely to their profession. The advances that nurses through history have made within the field of nursing have helped to bring people of all different backgrounds into this important career.
Early Nurses
475-1500: Nurses during the Middle Ages were mostly women who were untrained and helped with delivery of babies or served as wet nurses. Other formal “nurses” were often nuns who were called to care for the sick and the poor.
1113: The Knights of Malta began an “Order of the Hospital” on the island of Malta, as a work of hospice. The order was sanctioned by Pope Paschal II and dedicated to St. John the Baptist.
1247: Bethlem Royal Hospital opened in London as an institution to care for those with mental illness. The hospital has remained open for over 750 years and was nicknamed “bedlam.”
1259: The ministry of the Alexian Brothers began as a means of serving the sick and hungry and burying the dead. The ministry remains, with locations in Germany, Belgium, Ireland, England, Hungary, the Philippines and the United States.
1550: Juan Ciudad, a saint and religious leader in Spain, organized the Hospitaller Brothers of St. John of God to care for the poor and needy in Grenada.
1550-1614: Patron Saint of the sick, nurses, hospitals and doctors, St. Camillus de Lellis served in St. James’ Hospital in Rome. He cared for those who were dying and eventually became superintendent of the hospital.
1633: Founding of the Daughters of Charity by Saint Vincent de Paul. The organization was created for women dedicated to serving and caring for the poor and destitute in their hometowns.
1645: The Hotel-Dieu de Montreal is established by Jeanne Mance, a French nurse who came to the area of Canada that was known as New France at the time. It was the first hospital in North America and later saw several milestones; including the first nephrectomy and the first femur transplant.
The 18th Century
1751: Pennsylvania Hospital is founded by Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Thomas Bond as the nation’s first hospital. It was originally created to serve and care for the poor and homeless living on the streets of Philadelphia.
1775: A group of nurses during the Revolutionary War were recruited by Congress to attend to the sick and injured under the command of George Washington. The initial assignments were one nurse to every 10 patients.
1783: A black nurse from New Orleans named James Derham bought his freedom from slavery. He moved to Philadelphia and became the first black doctor in the United States.
1785: Martha Ballard served as a midwife in Maine. For years, she kept a diary of her work that was later published as a book known as A Midwife’s Tale.
The 19th Century
1841: Dorothea Dix became known as a prominent mental health nurse. She advocated for patients suffering from mental illness by inspecting institutions for signs of mistreatment.
1853: Florence Nightingale, along with 38 other nurses, is recruited to serve in the Crimean War. The nurses were employed by Secretary of War, Sidney Herbert.
1854: Nightingale enforces a sanitary reform at Scutari during the Crimean War. The mortality rate was over 42 percent and the reform was implemented to reduce the risk of infection. Following its application, the infection and mortality rate dropped.
1857: Mary Seacole, a biracial nurse who served alongside Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War, publishes her autobiography The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands.
1859: Florence Nightingale publishes the book Notes on Nursing, designed to help other nurses care for patients. It was one of the first books ever written specifically for nurses and gave practical advice, such as how to manage noise and light and how to keep areas clean.
1860: Opening of the Florence Nightingale School for Nurses in St. Thomas Hospital in London. Nursing students came from all over the world to study and graduates were called “Nightingales.”
1861: Nurses began wearing uniforms that consisted of floor-length outfits with starched aprons, sleeve cuffs and collars.
1861: Sally Louisa Tompkins starts a hospital designed for treating Confederate soldiers during the Civil War in Richmond, Virginia. It became known as the Robertson Hospital, with Tompkins as the head of the building. Her nickname became the “Angel of the Confederacy.”
1861-1864: Two thousand women served as nurses during the Civil War. Nurses served and cared for wounded soldiers, experiencing the horrors associated with battles. Many nurses wrote of their experiences of life on the front lines.
1862: Walt Whitman worked during the Civil War as a nurse caring for wounded soldiers. It was during this time that he penned many notes and poems.
1865: Sojourner Truth, working at Freedman’s Hospital in Washington, cared for wounded African-American soldiers. She also implemented cleaning practices to reduce infection, and taught many young nurses about their roles in caring for the sick and injured.
1866: A former slave, Biddy Mason became a nurse midwife in California. She worked to deliver babies and care for those suffering from smallpox. She later volunteered her time, home and resources to care for those on the street in Los Angeles, California.
1873: Linda Richards became the first American trained nurse. She graduated from the New England Hospital for Women and Children and became the night supervisor at Bellevue Hospital in New York City.
1878: Mary Eliza Mahoney became the first African-American registered nurse in the United States. She graduated from the New England Hospital for Women and Children after working there as a nurse’s assistant, cook and janitor for 15 years. Following graduation, she worked as a private-duty nurse.
1881: The American Red Cross is started by Clara Barton. Barton started the volunteer service as a means to reach the underserved and ran the organization for 23 years.
1885: After helping to establish nursing schools across the nation, Linda Richards started the first nursing school in Japan. She stayed to govern the school for the following five years.
1886: The Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary, originally started as a school to educate women who were former slaves, grew into an institution for women to learn community and social work. The school later changed its name to the Spelman Seminary.
1892: The first training for practical nurses was given by the Young Women’s Christian Association in New York. Licensed practical nurses were taught skills as homemakers and how to care for the sick.
1893: Lillian Wald began a crusade of the public health nurse after working in New York’s Lower East Side tenement housing. The role of the public health nurse was that of one who visited patients and worked outside of formal health institutions.
1893: The first recitation of the Florence Nightingale pledge was spoken at a graduation ceremony for nursing students at Harper Hospital in Detroit. The pledge was penned by a nursing instructor at the school and is still recited at many ceremonies for graduating nurses.
1895: Ambulance Work and Nursing is written and published in the late 1890s about the rigors of caring for patients in the field.
1896: The first convention of the Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada. Approximately 20 nurses attended the initial meeting, and the group later became the American Nurses Association.
1897: Jane Delano becomes president of Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan, the oldest public hospital still open in the United States. Delano had been a student at the Bellevue school of nursing and had traveled to different parts of the United States treating patients before returning to the area. She was initially an instructor of nursing before becoming the superintendent.
1899: The first international association for healthcare experts, the International Council of Nurses, is formed. The group formed between the United States, Britain and Germany as an organization to advance the profession of nursing.
The 20th Century
1900: The first edition of the American Journal of Nursing is published. It becomes a forum for research activities and updates within the nursing profession.
1902: Lina Rogers Struthers, a registered nurse from New York, became the first school nurse. She worked at four schools to promote health practices in an attempt to improve the health and education of students.
1902: Ellen Dougherty, a nurse in New Zealand, became the first Registered Nurse in the world. New Zealand began instituting registration requirements for nurses in 1901, and Dougherty was the first to receive her registration.
1908: The United States Naval Nursing Corps was established by Congress. The first 20 nurses that signed up were assigned work at naval hospitals and became known as the “Sacred Twenty.”
1908: The National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses was founded to meet the needs of black nurses. The organization served its members until 1951 when it officially merged with the American Nurses Association.
1909: The American Red Cross Nursing Service is formed by Jane Delano as a branch of the American Red Cross. The organization worked as a backup for the Army nursing personnel who would eventually serve in World War I.
1910: Mary Breckinridge graduated from the St. Luke’s School of Nursing. Breckinridge would later develop skills as a midwife and found the Frontier Nursing Service.
1913: Helen Fairchild became a nurse through Pennsylvania Hospital. She served during World War I in the American Expeditionary Force to care for wounded soldiers. Because she served on the front lines, her letters home clearly described the action and atrocities of the war.
1916: The Royal College of Nursing begins in London. The organization supports and protects nurses while promoting the academic and professional advancement within the nursing profession.
1917: Public health nurse Margaret Sanger founded the National Birth Control League to provide support and birth control for the poor of New York’s Upper East Side. The organization eventually became Planned Parenthood.
1917-1919: Nurses served during World War I. Nurses were deployed from the U.S. Navy Nursing Corps as well as those from the American Red Cross. Some nurses were dispatched as Special Operating Teams, who served specifically close to the frontlines.
1918: Dame Agnes Hunt became the first orthopedic nurse. Hunt was an English nurse who suffered from arthritis in her hip and was familiar with the work of bone specialists.
1923: Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail became the first American Indian registered nurse. She went on to serve Native American populations and later served on the federal Indian Health Advisory Committee.
1923: The Yale University School of Nursing is founded as the first independent nursing school, based on a University system. All other schools up until this time were associated with hospitals.
1923: After petitioning the government to recognize actual nurses as those who are “registered” to practice, Ethel Fenwick becomes the first Registered Nurse in the United Kingdom.
1925: The Frontier Nursing Service began in Leslie County, Kentucky by Mary Breckinridge. The Service was developed as a method to reach and care for the poor, rural and underserved population in Kentucky. It was the first organization in the United States that used nurses as midwives.
1936: Martha Rogers, a public health nurse and researcher, wrote a book entitled An Introduction to the Theoretical Basis of Nursing. Rogers established the Visiting Nurse Association in Phoenix and went on to become a nursing professor.
1938: The Nurse’s Memorial was constructed at Arlington National Cemetery. It was built as a place to honor the memories of many military nurses.
1941-1945: Over 59,000 nurses from the United States served during World War II. Eighty-two Army nurses were stationed in Hawaii during the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
1942: Sixty-five Australian nurses were killed after evacuating Singapore during World War II. Many were killed after the ship they were travelling on sank, while 53 more survived only to be murdered by the Japanese at Bangka Island. Only one nurse, Sister Vivian Bullwinkel, survived the ordeal.
1943: The first group of nurses graduated from flight school at AAF School of Air Evacuation to begin working as part of flight to serve patients. The United States Air Force nursing corps later began in 1949.
1946: The Division of Nursing Research within the Public Health Service was formed as an important step of federal government involvement into the work of nursing research.
1948: The National Health Service opens in England. The institution is supported financially by the public and provides many services free of charge to anyone who needs help and care.
1950: The earliest intensive care units were formed to handle patients who were extremely sick, injured or dying. The units brought about a specialty within nursing to create critical care nurses.
1955: The American Nurses Foundation is started as an affiliate of the American Nurses Association. The foundation seeks to raise money to fund research and education to further the work of nursing.
1956: The Columbia University School of Nursing offers the first program to award a Master’s degree in nursing.
1962-1973: Five thousand Army nurses served in Vietnam during the war. Nurses simultaneously cared for patients in Vietnam while also providing services stateside in the U.S.
1964: Passage of the Nurse Training Act, which helped to provide financial support for educating nurses and building nursing schools.
1967: Dame Cicely Saunders founded St. Christopher’s Hospice as a place to care for those suffering from terminal illness. The organization is located in London.
1967: The first transfer by helicopter of a premature infant from one hospital to another in the state of Illinois. The patient was accompanied by a nurse from the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis.
1969: The beginning of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses as a specialty nursing society. The organization seeks to provide education that is specifically geared toward critical care nurses and their essential skills.
1971: The National Black Nurses Association was founded as a voice for black nurses and to decrease the health disparities found among black citizens. The association also provides continuing education and leadership opportunities for black nurses.
1972: Eddie Bernice Johnson, a registered nurse from Dallas, is elected to the Texas House of Representatives as the first woman to lead the Labor Committee.
1973: The National Conference Group began developing a set of nursing terminology that could become consistent verbiage with all nurses across the country. The result was the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA).
1975: The National Association of Hispanic Nurses is formed originally as an organization of Spanish speaking or Spanish surname nurses. The organization officially changed its name in 1979.
1979: Case Western Reserve University establishes the first program to receive a doctorate degree in nursing. The program provides an opportunity for nurses to get an advanced practice degree that will allow them to become leaders in their fields.
1980: A book for nurses about helping patients with their activities of daily living is published, known as the Roper, Logan and Tierney Model of Nursing.
1985: The American Academy of Nurse Practitioners is formed as a professional association for nurse practitioners from all specialty backgrounds.
1990: Nursing Day is officially declared in Japan. The date falls on May 12, which coincides with Florence Nightingale’s birthday.
1990: Nursing uniforms and dresses give way to more comfortable and flexible clothing. Nurses begin to wear shirts and pants to work, also commonly referred to as “scrubs.”
1998: The National Coalition of Ethnic Minority Nurse Associations was founded. The group is a collaboration of associations for Asian American, Pacific Islander, Native American, Hispanic, Black and Philippine nurses.
The 21st Century
2002: The United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting (UKCC) came to an end and merged with the Nursing and Midwifery Council.
2007: The International Council of Nurses holds its global conference in Yokohama, Japan. The conference seeks to set up networking and educational experiences for professional nurses who work all over the world.