Lest We Forget

Monday May 26 we will celebrate Memorial Day. At one time it was called Decoration Day and the actual date was May 30. Some years ago Congress decided there was need for another three day weekend, and we now celebrate Memorial Day on the last Monday of May. The information here I got from Wikipedia. If you click on the blue words they are links to other information. Please take a moment to remember our military, past and present, on Memorial Day.

Following the end of the Civil War, many communities set aside a day to mark the end of the war or as a memorial to those who had died. Some of the places creating an early memorial day include Charleston, South Carolina; Boalsburg, Pennsylvania; Richmond, Virginia; Carbondale, Illinois; Columbus, Mississippi; many communities in Vermont; and some two dozen other cities and towns. These observances eventually coalesced around Decoration Day, honoring the Union dead, and the several Confederate Memorial Days.

According to Professor David Blight of the Yale University History Department, the first memorial day was observed in 1865 by liberated slaves at the historic race track in Charleston. The site was a former Confederate prison camp as well as a mass grave for Union soldiers who had died while captive. A parade with thousands of freed blacks and Union soldiers was followed by patriotic singing and a picnic.

The official birthplace of Memorial Day is Waterloo, New York. The village was credited with being the birthplace because it observed the day on May 5, 1866, and each year thereafter, and because it is likely that the friendship of General John Murray, a distinguished citizen of Waterloo, and General John A. Logan, who led the call for the day to be observed each year and helped spread the event nationwide, was a key factor in its growth.

General Logan had been impressed by the way the South honored their dead with a special day and decided the Union needed a similar day. Reportedly, Logan said that it was most fitting; that the ancients, especially the Greeks, had honored their dead, particularly their heroes, by chaplets of laurel and flowers, and that he intended to issue an order designating a day for decorating the grave of every soldier in the land, and if he could he would have made it a holiday.

Logan had been the principal speaker in a citywide memorial observation on April 29, 1866, at a cemetery in Carbondale, Illinois, an event that likely gave him the idea to make it a national holiday. On May 5, 1868, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, a veterans' organization, Logan issued a proclamation that "Decoration Day" be observed nationwide. It was observed for the first time on May 30 of the same year; the date was chosen because it was not the anniversary of a battle. The tombs of fallen Union soldiers were decorated in remembrance of this day.

Many of the states of the U.S. South refused to celebrate Decoration Day, due to lingering hostility towards the Union Army and also because there were very few veterans of the Union Army who lived in the South. A notable exception was Columbus, Mississippi, which on April 25, 1866 at its Decoration Day commemorated both the Union and Confederate casualties buried in its cemetery.[1]

The alternative name of "Memorial Day" was first used in 1882, but did not become more common until after World War II, and was not declared the official name by Federal law until 1967 . On June 28, 1968, the United States Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill, which moved three holidays from their traditional dates to a specified Monday in order to create a convenient three-day weekend and for the first time recognized Columbus Day as a federal holiday. The holidays included Washington's Birthday (which evolved into Presidents' Day), Veterans Day, and Memorial Day. The change moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May. The law took effect at the federal level in 1971 . After some initial confusion and unwillingness to comply at the state level, all fifty states adopted the measure within a few years, although Veterans Day was eventually changed back to its traditional date. Ironically, most corporate businesses no longer close on Columbus Day or Veterans Day, and an increasing number are staying open on President's Day as well. The holiday has endured as one during which most businesses stay closed because it marks the beginning of the "summer vacation season," as does neighboring Canada's Victoria Day, which occurs on the prior Monday.

Happy Birthday Dad

We went to see my Dad this past weekend. He will be 94 years old tomorrow. He doesn't hear very well at all, even though he has two hearing aids, but he does well for his age. He lives in St. Joseph of the Pines Assisted Living Center in Southern Pines, North Carolina. He does everything for himself. The nurses at St. Joseph's say they wish all their residents were like him as he is no problem. I am amazed at how well he does. Some may say he is very forgetful, but I don't see that as much as he doesn't hear you when you talk to him. It is very difficult to have a conversation with him and the nurses say when they want to tell him somthing they actually write it down and give it to him. We asked him if he watched the Preakness on Saturday and he said no, but then told us how he used to go to Pimlico when he was a kid and could stand outside the racetrack and watch the race. He said he never went in the track because they could stand outside and watch. He uses a walker, but once he gets to moving there is no stopping him. He goes to church on Sunday morning, but says the priest talks too long--when he was a kid mass used to last 45 minutes, but this priest talks so much it takes an hour! He said when he went to St. Peter's Catholic School the whole school had to go to mass everyday during Advent and Lent. We had lunch with him in the dining room, and he introduced us to many of his friends. We've met most of them before and they all knew who we were. He also told us he was amazed he has lived to be 94, but that since he has lived this long he would like to make it to 100. He just may. He seems to have the determination. He told me he had four sisters and one brother, which is correct. He also said he was glad Christopher was in Alaska getting snow in April and not him. He asked if Victoria was still living in Florida, and when I said she is in California he said she could visit my brother Pat. He also told me someone had told him our house on Carey Street in Baltimore is no longer there, which is correct, that the B & O is gone, which is correct, that the House of Good Shepherds is gone, which is correct, and that 14 Holy Martyrs, where we went when I was little, is now a Baptist Church, again correct. I had some pictures on my camera from last fall when we visited Baltimore, one of which was the door to the house at 20 South Carey Street where he lived as a kid. He said it was a new door, and I'm sure that is true, but he knew right away where it was. I hope we all live to be 94 and do as well as Dad. Happy Birthday Dad!!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ME

The card is from Clara and Jonathan. Notice the beautiful handwriting and fantastic art work. They are very talented children. These flowers are from Michael.

FOR ME FOR MOTHER'S DAY

What a wonderful surprise to be awakened today by the florist at the door bringing me beautiful flowers from my son and daughter-in-law, Christopher and Nikki, who are snowed under in Alaska. Thank you Chrustopher and Nikki. The flowers are beautiful and I really do appreciate them so very much. Love you both.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

As you can see by the number of entries to my blog, May has been a very busy month. There are birthdays, Nurses' Week, and Mother's Day. There is one more event in May that I'd like to make note of. On May 21, 1972 Michael Robin Mullikin and Monica Cecelia Small were married. The following slide shows are our memories of that time. The first is a short slide show which includes a picture of the first date Mike and I went on and then pictures of the shower my then mother-in-law to be threw for me. These pictures prove we were also once young, even though our children and their spouses may not believe it. We were full of hopes, fears, expectations and dreams, just as young people are today. And now, 36 years later, I feel we have fulfilled a lot of those hopes and dreams. It hasn't been perfect, and it hasn't always been easy. We've had our share of separations due to cruises and aggravation with military orders. For 30 years we moved frequently, often leaving friends behind, but making new ones at our next home. Over the years we have also had disappointments--maybe more than we wanted, but way less than we thought. We've laughed, cried, lost loved ones, gained new family and friends, regretted things, made memories, watched our children grow, seen our grandchildren born, argued, made up, and lived through all of it. I can only hope everyone reading this can some day say they too are married 36 years. Here's hoping for at least 36 more years.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

This is for all the mothers, young and old, present and missing. This is for birth mothers and mothers who gave their children up at birth. This is for adoptive mothers, foster mothers, grandmothers, great grandmothers and beyond. This is for mothers who have much happiness, many fears, those who laugh, those who cry. Those whose children are close by, and those whose children are far away. For mothers who marveled at that first cry and the miracle of birth that no matter how many times it happens is always amazing. For mothers who knew when they heard that first cry they would never see this total wonder she had just brought into the world, but knew another mother would be totally overwhelmed with her generosity. This is for mothers who have stayed awake all night with a sick child, or worried until her child came home from a date. This is for mothers of little children and grown children--the worry and pain and hope never stops. This is for mothers who have lost a child--you will never stop missing them. This is for mothers who cried when their child went to Kindergarten for the first time, for those whose children went off to college, and they cried yet again, and for those whose chidren have left the nest entirely, and there were even more tears. This is for mothers who didn't always understand why their children did what they did, but allowed them to do it. This is for mothers who allowed their children to be angry with them, and mothers who have been angry with their children. After all is said and done, all these mothers still love their children with a love that can never be surpassed. These are mothers who felt they had given every ounce of love to their first child only to have a second and know there was much more love to give. This is for mothers who after raising her own children and thinking for absolutely sure there was no more love to be had, then becomes a grandmother and finally realizes love is never-ending. Happy Mother's Day to all of you. If your mother is present or long gone, take a few minutes to think about her and remember her laugh and listen to her advice. Even if she's gone if you try hard enough you will hear her. She's there and always will be. Happy Mother's Day!

Along the side of this blog you will find pictures of nurses who have had a real impact on the profession of nursing. Here you will find the deeds that made them famous. Enjoy!!


Mary Ann Bickerdyke

Mary Ann Bickerdyke (July 19, 1817-November 8, 1901), also known as Mother Bickerdyke, was a hospital administrator for Union soldiers during the American Civil War.

She was born in Knox County, Ohio, to Hiram Ball and Annie Rodgers Ball. She later moved to Galesburg, Illinois.

After the outbreak of the Civil War, she joined a field hospital at Fort Donelson, working alongside Mary J. Stafford. She later worked on the first hospital boat. During the war, she became chief of nursing under the command of General Ulysses S. Grant, and served at the Battle of Vicksburg. When his staff complained about the outspoken, insubordinate female nurse who consistently disregarded the army's red tape and military procedures, Union Gen. William T. Sherman threw up his hands and exclaimed, "She outranks me. I can't do a thing in the world." Bickerdyke was a nurse who ran roughshod over anyone who stood in the way of her self-appointed duties. She was known affectionately to her "boys", the grateful enlisted men, as "Mother" Bickerdyke. When a surgeon questioned her authority to take some action, she replied, "On the authority of Lord God Almighty, have you anything that outranks that?"

Mother Bickerdyke became the best known, most colorful, and probably most resourceful Civil War nurse. Widowed two years before the war began, she supported herself and her two half-grown sons by practicing as a "botanic Physician" in Galesburg, Illinois. When a young Union volunteer physician wrote home about the filthy, chaotic military hospitals at Cairo, Illinois, Galesburg's citizens collected $500 worth of supplies and selected Bickerdyke to deliver them.
She stayed in Cairo as an unofficial nurse, and through her unbridled energy and dedication she organized the hospitals and gained Grant's appreciation. Grant sanctioned her efforts, and when his army moved down the Mississippi, Bickerdyke went too, setting up hospitals where they were needed. Sherman was especially fond of this volunteer nurse who followed the western armies, and supposedly she was the only woman he would allow in his camp. By the end of the war, with the help of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, Mother Bickerdyke had built 300 hospitals and aided the wounded on 19 battlefields including the Battle of Shiloh and Sherman's March to the Sea.

"Mother" Bickerdyke was so loved by the army that the soldiers would cheer her as they would a general when she appeared. At Sherman's request, she rode at the head of the XV Corps in the Grand Review in Washington at the end of the war.
After the war ended, she worked for the Salvation Army in San Francisco, and became an attorney, helping Union veterans with legal issues. She received a special pension from Congress in 1886, and retired to Bunker Hill, Kansas. She passed away peacefully after a minor stroke.

Clara Maass



Clara Louise Maass (June 28, 1876 – August 24, 1901) was an American nurse who died as a result of volunteering for medical experiments to study yellow fever.


Early Life

Clara Maass was born in East Orange, New Jersey to German immigrants Hedwig and Robert Maass. She was the oldest of 9 children in a devout Lutheran family.
In 1895 she became one of the first graduates of Newark German Hospital's Christina Trefz Training School for Nurses. By 1898, she had been promoted to head nurse at Newark German Hospital where she was known for her hard work and dedication to her profession.

Army Service

In April 1898, during the Spanish-American War, Maass volunteered as a contract nurse for the United States Army (the Army Nurse Corps did not yet exist). She served with the Seventh U. S. Army Corps from October 1, 1898 to February 5, 1899 in Jacksonville, Florida, Savannah, Georgia, and Santiago, Cuba. She was discharged in 1899 but then volunteered again with the Eighth U.S. Army Corps in the Philippines from November 1899 to mid-1900.
During her army service she saw few battle injuries, instead caring mostly for soldiers suffering from infectious diseases like typhoid, malaria, dengue and yellow fever. She contracted dengue in Manila and was sent home.

Yellow Fever Studies

Shortly after finishing her second assignment with the army, Maass returned to Cuba in October 1900 after being summoned by William Gorgas, who was working with the U.S. Army's Yellow Fever Commission. The commission, headed by Major Walter Reed, was established during the post-war occupation of Cuba in order to investigate yellow fever, which was endemic in Cuba. One of the commission's goals was to determine how the disease was spread: by mosquito bites or by contact with contaminated objects.
The commission recruited human subjects because they did not know of any animals that could contract yellow fever. In the first recorded instance of informed consent in human experiments, volunteers were told that participation in the studies might cause their deaths. As an incentive, volunteers were paid US$100, which was a large amount at the time, with an additional $100 if the volunteer became ill.
In March 1901, Maass volunteered to be bitten by a Culex fasciata mosquito (now called Aedes aegypti) that had been allowed to feed on yellow fever patients. She contracted a mild case of the disease from which she quickly recovered. By this time, the researchers were certain that mosquitoes were the route of transmission, but lacked the scientific evidence to prove it because some volunteers who were bitten remained healthy. Maass continued to volunteer for experiments.

Death

On August 14, 1901, Maass allowed herself to be bitten by infected mosquitoes for the second time. The researchers were hoping to show that her earlier case of yellow fever was sufficient to immunize her against the disease. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Maass once again became ill with yellow fever on August 18 and died on August 24. Her death roused public sentiment and put an end to yellow fever experiments on humans.
Maass was buried in Colon Cemetery in Havana with military honors. Her body was moved to Fairmount Cemetery, Newark, New Jersey, on February 20, 1902.

Tributes

A 13¢ US postage stamp in Maass' honor. The caption reads "She gave her life".
In 1951, the 50th anniversary of her death, Cuba issued a postage stamp in her honor.
On June 19, 1952, Newark German Hospital (which had since moved to Belleville, New Jersey) was renamed Clara Maass Memorial Hospital.
In 1976, the 100th anniversary of her birth, Maass was honored with a 13¢ United States commemorative stamp.
Also in 1976, the American Nurses Association inducted her into its Nursing Hall of Fame.
The Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church honors her on August 13 with Florence Nightingale as a "Renewer of Society".

Dorothea Dix



Born
April 4, 1802(1802-04-04)Hampden, Maine, U.S.

Died
July 17, 1887 (aged 85)Trenton, New Jersey, U.S.

Occupation
Social reformer

Parents
Joseph Dix Mary Bigelow

Dorothea Lynde Dix (April 4, 1802 – July 17, 1887) was an American activist on behalf of the indigent insane who, through a vigorous program of lobbying state legislatures and the


Early Life

She was born in Hampden, Maine, and grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts, and then in her wealthy grandmother's home in Boston. She was the first child of three born to Joseph Dix and Mary Bigelow. Her father was an itinerant worker. She struggled to find a career in traditional female occupations: schoolteacher, governess, writer. None of these pursuits satisfied her ambition, and in her mid-thirties she suffered a debilitating breakdown. In hopes of a cure, in 1836 she traveled to England, where she had the good fortune to meet the Rathbone family, who invited her to spend a year as their guest at Greenbank, their ancestral mansion in Liverpool. The Rathbones were Quakers and prominent social reformers, and at Greenbank, Dix met men and women who believed that government should play a direct, active role in social welfare. She was also exposed to the British lunacy reform movement, whose methods involved detailed investigations of madhouses and asylums, the results of which were published in reports to the House of Commons.

Antebellum Career

After she returned to America, in 1840-41, Dix conducted a statewide investigation of how her home state of Massachusetts cared for the insane poor. In most cases, towns contracted with local individuals to care for people with mental disorders who could not care for themselves, and who lacked family and friends to provide for them. Unregulated and underfunded, this system produced widespread abuse. After her survey, Dix published the results in a fiery report, a Memorial, to the state legislature. "I proceed, Gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to the present state of Insane Persons confined within this Commonwealth, in cages, stalls, pens! Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience." The outcome of her lobbying was a bill to expand the state's mental hospital in Worcester.

Henceforth, Dix traveled from New Hampshire to Louisiana, documenting the condition of pauper lunatics, publishing memorials to state legislatures, and devoting enormous personal energy to working with committees to draft the enabling legislation and appropriations bills needed to build asylums. In 1848, Dorothea Dix visited North Carolina and called for reform in the care of mentally ill patients. In 1849, when the North Carolina State Medical Society was formed, the construction of an institution in the capital, Raleigh, for the care of mentally ill patients was authorized. The hospital, named in honor of Dorothea Dix, opened in 1856. She was instrumental in the founding of the first public mental hospital in Pennsylvania, the Harrisburg State Hospital, and later in establishing its library and reading room in 1853.

The culmination of her work was legislation to set aside 12,225,000 acres (49,473 km²) of Federal land (10,000,000 acres for the benefit of the insane and the remainder for the "blind, deaf, and dumb"), with proceeds from its sale distributed to the states to build and maintain asylums. Dix's land bill passed both houses of Congress, but in 1854 President Franklin Pierce vetoed it, arguing that the federal government should not commit itself to social welfare, which was properly the resonsibility of the states. Stung by the defeat of her land bill, in 1854 and 1855 Dix traveled to England and Europe, where she reconnected with the Rathbones and conducted investigations of Scotland's madhouses that precipitated the Scottish Lunacy Commission.

"Fountain for thirsty horses Dix gave to the city of Boston to honor the MSPCA

Final Years

During the Civil War, Dix was appointed Superintendent of Union Army Nurses. Unfortunately, the qualities that made her a successful crusader—independence, single-minded zeal—did not lend themselves to managing a large organization of female nurses. At odds with Army doctors, she was gradually relieved of real responsibility and would consider this chapter in her career a failure. However, her even-handed caring for Union and Confederate wounded alike, which may not have endeared her to Radical Republicans, assured her memory in the South.

Her nurses provided what was often the only care available in the field to Confederate wounded. "The surgeon in charge of our camp ... looked after all their wounds, which were often in a most shocking state, particularly among the rebels. Every evening and morning they were dressed." - Georgeanna Woolsey, a Dix nurse. "Many of these were Rebels. I could not pass them by neglected. Though enemies, they were nevertheless helpless, suffering human beings." - Julia Susan Wheelock, a Dix nurse. Over 5000 Confederate wounded were left behind, when Robert E. Lee retreated from Gettysburg, who were then treated by Dix's nurses, like Cornelia Hancock who wrote about what she saw. "There are no words in the English language to express the suffering I witnessed today ..." In 1881, Dix moved into the New Jersey State Hospital, Morris Plains, where the state legislature designated a suite for her private use as long as she lived. An invalid, yet still managing to correspond with people from England to Japan, she died on July 17, 1887. Dix was buried in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MassachusettsUnited States Congress, created the first generation of American mental asylums. During the Civil War, she served as Superintendent of Army Nurses.

Mary Breckinridge

By Gina Castlenovo, MSN, MPH, RN

Established the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS) in 1925 to provide professional health care in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky, one of America's poorest and most isolated regions.

FNS, which has served as a model of rural health care delivery for the United States and the rest of the world, included a decentralized system of nurse-midwives visiting clients at their homes, district nursing centers, and a hospital serving an area of 700 square miles.

The FNS system lowered the maternal mortality rate in Leslie County, Kentucky, from the highest in the country to well below the national average.

FNS staff started the American Association of Nurse-Midwives, a precursor of the American College of Nurse-Midwives, in 1929 and the first American school of midwifery in New York in 1932.

The FNS School of Midwifery and Family Nursing, the longest continually operating nurse-midwifery program in the country, was established in 1939 in Hyden, Kentucky.

In the early 1900s, many women in rural areas of the United States had no access to health care. Most women gave birth to their children at home, with only the help of family members or neighbors. For every 100,000 live births, over 800 resulted in maternal death (vs. 7.7 per 100,000 in the US today), and 100 out of 1000 children died before their first birthday (vs. 7.2 per 1000 in the US today).

Mary Breckinridge, born in 1881 to an influential Kentucky family, enjoyed a privileged childhood and education in the U.S. and Europe. Her father was the U.S. ambassador to Czar Nicholas II of Russia from 1894 to 1897.

In 1906, Breckinridge was widowed at age 26. Following the death of both her children at an early age, Breckinridge dedicated her life to improving the health of women and children. She became a registered nurse in 1910, at St. Luke's Hospital in New York. While working in France during World War I, she was exposed to new healthcare ideas: "After I had met British nurse-midwives, first in France and then on my visits to London, it grew upon me that nurse-midwifery was the logical response to the needs of the young child in rural America...My work would be for them."

After the war, Breckinridge studied public health nursing at Columbia University. She decided to tackle the health problems of eastern Kentucky, an area of few roads and no physicians, thinking that if her plans succeeded in such a poor, inaccessible area, they could work anywhere. Traveling on horseback, she surveyed families about their health needs and local lay-midwives about birth practices. She found that women lacked prenatal care and gave birth to an average of nine children, primarily attended by self-taught lay midwives, farmers' wives who relied on folklore and invasive practices.

Breckinridge saw high maternal mortality and came to believe that children's healthcare should begin in the prenatal period, focusing on birth and a child's first years. She returned to London to become a certified nurse-midwife. She then visited Scotland to observe the work of a community midwifery system serving poor, rural areas; its decentralized structure served as a model for the Frontier Nursing Service. Returning to Kentucky in 1925, Breckinridge began the work that would introduce a new type of rural health care system in the United States.

The Frontier Nursing Service (FNS) was established in 1925 as a private charitable organization serving an area of about 700 square miles in southeastern Kentucky. Through her influential connections and speaking engagements, Breckinridge raised over $6 million dollars to support the organization. The staff was initially composed of nurse-midwives trained in England. They traveled on horseback and on foot to provide quality prenatal and childbirth care in the clients' own homes, functioning as both midwives and family nurses. Clients could pay the low fees in money or goods, and no one was turned away. In the area served, both maternal and infant mortality rates decreased dramatically.

Since 1925, the FNS has registered over 64,000 patients, and in its first 50 years, it "delivered 17,053 babies with only 11 maternal deaths." An FNS-trained nurse-midwife began the first American school of midwifery in New York in 1932, and the FNS founded its own school in Hayden, Kentucky in 1938. Breckinridge ran the Frontier Nursing Service until her death in 1965.

Today, the FNS still serves southeastern Kentucky, with a hospital in Hyden, four rural health clinics, a home health agency, and the FNS School of Midwifery and Family Nursing. People have come from around the world to study this model of rural health and social service delivery.

The American College of Nurse Midwives recognizes Breckinridge as "the first to bring nurse-midwifery to the United States" and the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing as "a leader in nurse-midwifery in the United States and a tribute to the accomplishments of Mary Breckinridge and her contemporaries." In 1982, Breckinridge was inducted into the American Nurses Association's Hall of Fame for her contributions to the nursing profession in women's health, community and family nursing, and rural health care delivery.

Lavinia Lloyd Dock

It is an injustice to summarize the life of Lavinia Dock: Her brilliance sparked many causes and not just in nursing. Born February 26, 1858 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, she was one of six children. Well educated, she is said to have been inspired to enter nursing after reading a magazine article. Below are some hughlights of her life:

1886--Graduated Bellevue Training School for Nurses

1888--During a yellow fever epidemic in Jacksonville Florida ran ward with Jane

Delano

1889--Worked at Johnstown, Pennsylvania Flood

1890--Assistant superintendent under Isabel Haspton at Johns Hopkins

1893--Present at founding of the Society of Superintendents of Training Schools

1893--Became superintendent at Illinois Training School ["I was really a failure"]

1896--Joins with Lillian Wald at the Henry Street Settlement where she lives and works for the next 20 years. She claimed she never thought until this time.

Very Instrumental

• Society of Superintendent of Training Schools, served as secretary
• 1896 Dock was chairperson and secretary of the Committee on a National Association that founded the Nurses' Associated Alumnae
• International Council of Nurses; founded with Ethel Gordon Fenwick; served as Secretary from 1900-1922
• Volunteer faculty at Teachers College in Hospital Economics program
• Contributing Editor for AJN "Foreign Department" 1900-1923
• Wrote History of Nursing with Adelaide Nutting
• Joined Alice Paul's Advisory Council of the National Woman's Party

Social Activism:

1907--Joined Equality League of Self Supporting Women; ran suffrage newsstand in front of their office

Involved with Social Reform Club. ALso worked with New York Women's Trade Union League

1909--Walked picket line for Shirtwaist strike

1913--Spoke at ANA Convention urging nurses to support union movement

1910--Hygiene & Morality published; called for abolition of double standard of morality; abolis, not regulate prostitution, suffrage for women, self control for men

1912--Walked with four other women from New York City to Albany on a Suffrage hike

1913--Organized marchers from the Lower East Side for the Suffrage Parade; carried banners in ten languages

1917--Led suffrage pickets from the National Women's Party Headquarters to the White House. Was jailed June 25 and August 17, 1917, and again August 6, 1918 for participating in militant demonstrations

With LEnore O'Reilly founded a local of the Unite Garment Workes of AMerica at a Henry Street Workshop. Encouraged workers to unite in trade unions.

Crusader against venereal disease; early member of American Society of Sanitary and MOral Prophylaxis

1921--Praised birth control leader Margaret Sanger: "for teaching to poor women waht all well-to-do women may learn from reliable authority"

Active in National Women's Party

COndemned World War I

1916--Moved back with family in Pennsylvania

1922--Resigned as ICN secretary

1923--Resigned from American Journal of Nursing

1947--Attended ICN at Atlantic City, age 89

1956--Fell, broke hip, died April 17

Lillian Wald

(1867-1940)
by Seymour "Sy" Brody

Lillian D. Wald was the founder of the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service and of the Henry Street Settlement. She was also responsible for the instruction of nurses in the public schools and for insurance companies providing free visiting nurses for their policy holders.

She was born on March 10, 1867, of German-Jewish parents, Minnie and Max Wald, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Wald's family sent her to private schools. Her father was a successful merchant in optical goods in Rochester, New York. She became interested in nursing when her sister was sick and had a private nurse.

Her interest in nursing persisted, and when she was 22 years old she enrolled as a student in the New York Hospital Training School for Nurses. Two years later, in March, 1891, she graduated as a nurse. Wald took postgraduate courses where her assignment was to organize a plan for home nursing to meet the needs of the poor immigrant families on the Lower East Side of New York.

After seeing firsthand the miserable conditions that existed. she decided to move to that neighborhood so that she could be a visiting nurse there. Her friend, Mary Brewster, joined her and in the fall of 1893 they set up their office on the top floor of a tenement on Jefferson Street. Wald managed to get financial support from sponsors who recognized the importance of her work. It didn't take long for her to win the confidence of the people in the neighborhood. As the patients increased, so did her staff. She soon had four nurses, and in 1895 she moved to 265 Henry Street, which was her base for 40 years.

Wald's staff dispensed help to all who needed it regardless of race or religion. By 1913, her staff had grown to 92. When she thought about children's absences from school because of illness, she arranged for a member of her staff to provide nursing service in a public school. It was enthusiastically received and the success that it enjoyed soon led to the New York Board of Health organizing and staffing the first public nursing system in the world.

Wald went to the insurance companies to sell them on the idea of providing free visiting public health nurses to their policy holders. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company was the first one to do so in 1903, and it did not take long for other insurance companies to follow.

She recognized that the area mothers and their daughters had to be educated on home nursing, cooking and sewing. She founded the Henry Street Settlement for their education and also to provide recreation and activities for the family and the children. In 1915, Wald founded the Neighborhood Playhouse on Grand Street to help meet the cultural needs of the Lower East Side. Throughout her life she worked very hard for social reform.

Today, the Henry Street Settlement and the Visiting Nurse Service are institutions in New York City. They are testimonials to Lillian D. Wald, who only wanted people to have healthy lives. She died in 1940.

Clara Barton

Clarissa Harlowe Barton ( December 25, 1821 - April 12, 1912) was a pioneer American teacher, nurse, and humanitarian. She has been described as having a "strong and independent spirit" and is best remembered for organizing the American Red Cross.


Youth, Education, Family Nursing

Clarissa Harlowe Barton was born on Christmas day, 1821, in Oxford, Massachusetts, to Stephen and Sarah Barton. She was the youngest of five children. Barton's father and mother were abolitionists. Clara's father was a farmer and horse breeder, while her mother Sarah managed the household. The two later helped found the first Universalist Church in Oxford.

As a child, Clara was shy. She had two brothers, Stephen and David, and two sisters, Dorothy/Dolly and Sally, who were at least ten years older than she. Young Clara was educated at home and extremely bright. It is said that her siblings were kept busy answering her many questions, and each taught her complementary skills, her older sisters being teachers. Her brothers were happy to teach her how to ride horses and do other things that, at the time, were thought appropriate only for men.

When Clara was eleven, her brother David became her first patient after he fell from a rafter in their unfinished barn. Clara stayed by his side for two years and learned to administer all his medicines, including the "great, loathsome crawling leeches".

As she continued to develop an interest in nursing, Clara may have drawn inspiration from stories of her great-aunt, Martha Ballard, who served the town of Hallowell (later Augusta), Maine, as a midwife for over three decades. Ballard helped deliver nearly one thousand infants between 1777 and 1812, and in many cases administered medical care in much the same way as a formally trained doctor of her era.

On his death bed, Clara's father gave her advice that she would later recall:

"As a patriot, he had me serve my country with all I had, even with my life if need be; as the daughter of an accepted Mason, he had me seek and comfort the afflicted everywhere, and as a Christian he charged me to honor God and love mankind."

In April 1862, after the First Battle of Bull Run, Barton established an agency to obtain and distribute supplies to wounded soldiers. She was given a pass by General William Hammond to ride in army ambulances to provide comfort to the soldiers and nurse them back to health and lobbied the U.S. Army bureaucracy, at first without success, to bring her own medical supplies to the battlefields. Finally, in July 1862, she obtained permission to travel behind the lines, eventually reaching some of the grimmest battlefields of the war and serving during the sieges of Petersburg, Virginia and Richmond, Virginia. In 1864 she was appointed by Union general Benjamin Butler as the "lady in charge" of the hospitals at the front of the Army of the James.

In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln placed Barton in charge of the search for the missing men of the Union army. While engaged in this work she traced the fate of 30,000 men. When the war ended, she was sent to

Andersonville, Georgia, to set up and mark the graves of Union soldiers. Her work in Andersonville is displayed in the book, Numbering All the Bones, by Ann Rinaldi. This experience launched her on a nationwide campaign to identify all soldiers missing during the Civil War. She published lists of names in newspapers and exchanged letters with soldiers' families.

Barton then achieved widespread recognition by delivering lectures around the country about her war experiences. She met Susan B. Anthony and began a long association with the suffrage movement. She also became acquainted with Frederick Douglass and became an activist for black civil rights, or an abolitionist.

Barton Sees the International Committee of the Red Cross in Action

The years of toil during the Civil War and her dedicated work searching for missing soldiers debilitated Barton's health. In 1869, her doctors recommended a restful trip to Europe. In 1870, while she was overseas, she became involved with the

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and its humanitarian work during the Franco-Prussian War. Created in 1864, the ICRC had been chartered to provide humane services to all victims of war under a flag of neutrality.

Organizing the American Red Cross

When Clara Barton returned to the United States, she inaugurated a movement to gain recognition for the International Committee of the Red Cross by the United States government. When she began work on this project in 1873, most Americans thought the U.S. would never again face a calamity like the Civil War, but Barton finally succeeded during the administration of President

James Garfield, using the argument that the new American Red Cross could respond to crises other than war. As Barton expanded the original concept of the Red Cross to include assisting in any great national disaster, this service brought the United States the "Good Samaritan of Nations" label.

Barton naturally became President of the American branch of the society, which was founded on

May 21, 1881. John D. Rockefeller donated funds to create a national headquarters in Washington, DC, located one block from the White House.

Barton at first dedicated the

American Red Cross to performing disaster relief, such as after the 1893 Sea Islands Hurricane. This changed with the advent of the Spanish-American War during which it aided refugees and prisoners of war. Barton herself worked in hospitals in Cuba in 1898 at the age of seventy-seven. As criticism arose of her management of the American Red Cross, plus her advancing age, Barton resigned as president in 1904, at the age of 83.

Religious Beliefs

Various authorities have called Barton a “Deist-Unitarian.” However, her actual beliefs varied throughout her life along a spectrum between freethought and deism. In a 1905 letter to her friend, Norman Thrasher, she called herself a “Universalist.”

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman is perhaps the most well-known of all the Underground Railroad's "conductors." During a ten-year span she made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom. And, as she once proudly pointed out to Frederick Douglass, in all of her journeys she "never lost a single passenger."

Tubman was born a slave in Maryland's Dorchester County around 1820. At age five or six, she began to work as a house servant. Seven years later she was sent to work in the fields. While she was still in her early teens, she suffered an injury that would follow her for the rest of her life. Always ready to stand up for someone else, Tubman blocked a doorway to protect another field hand from an angry overseer. The overseer picked up and threw a two-pound weight at the field hand. It fell short, striking Tubman on the head. She never fully recovered from the blow, which subjected her to spells in which she would fall into a deep sleep.

Around 1844 she married a free black man named John Tubman and took his last name. (She was born Araminta Ross; she later changed her first name to Harriet, after her mother.) In 1849, in fear that she, along with the other slaves on the plantation, was to be sold, Tubman resolved to run away. She set out one night on foot. With some assistance from a friendly white woman, Tubman was on her way. She followed the North Star by night, making her way to Pennsylvania and soon after to Philadelphia, where she found work and saved her money. The following year she returned to Maryland and escorted her sister and she sister's two children to freedom. She made the dangerous trip to the SOuth soon after to resuce her brother and two other men. On her third return, she went after her husband, only to find he had taken another wife. Undeterred, she found other slaves seeking freedom and escorted them to the North.

Tubman returned to the South again and again. She devvised clever techniques that helped make her "forays" successful, including using the master's horse and buggy for the first leg of the journey; leaving on a Saturday night, since runaway notices couldn't be placed in newspapers until Monday morning; turning about and heading south if she encountered possible slave hunters; and carrying a drug to use on a baby if its crying might put the fugitives in danger. Tubman even carried a gun which she used to threaten the fugitives if they became too tired or decided to turn back, telling them, "You'll be free or die."

By 1856, Tubman's capture would have brought a $40,000 reward from the South. On one occasion, she overheard some men reading her wanted poster, which stated that she was illiterate. She promptly pulled out a book and feigned reading it. The ploy was enough to fool the men.

Tubman had made the perilous trip to slave country 19 times by 1860, including one especially challenging journey in which she rescued her 70-year-old parents. Of the famed heroine, who became known as "Moses," Frederick Douglass said, "Excepting John Brown -- of sacred memory -- I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than [Harriet Tubman]."And John Brown, who conferred with "General Tubman" about his plans to raid Harpers Ferry, once said that she was "one of the bravest persons on this continent."

Becoming friends with the leading abolitionists of the day, Tubman took part in antislavery meetings. On the way to such a meeting in Boston in 1860, in an incident in Troy, New York, she helped a fugitive slave who had been captured.

During the Civil War Harriet Tubman worked for the Union as a cook, a nurse, and even a spy. After the war she settled in Auburn, New York, where she would spend the rest of her long life. She died in 1913.

Sojourner Truth (Isabella Baumfree)

NAME: Isabella Baumfree (Sojourner Truth)

BIRTHDATE: 1797

BIRTHPLACE: Ulster County, New York

FAMILY BACKGROUND: Sojourner Truth was born in 1797 on the Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh estate in Swartekill, in Ulster County, a Dutch settlement in upstate New York. Her given name was Isabella Baumfree (also spelled Bomefree). She was one of 13 children born to Elizabeth and James Baumfree, also slaves on the Hardenbergh plantation. She spoke only Dutch until she was sold from her family around the age of nine. Because of the cruel treatment she suffered at the hands of a later master, she learned to speak English quickly, but had a Dutch accent for the rest of her life.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS: She was first sold around age 9 when her second master (Charles Hardenbergh) died in 1808. She was sold to John Neely, along with a herd of sheep, for $100. Neely's wife and family only spoke English and beat Isabella fiercely for the frequent miscommunications. She later said that Neely once whipped her with "a bundle of rods, prepared in the embers, and bound together with cords." It was during this time that she began to find refuge in religion -- beginning the habit of praying aloud when scared or hurt. When her father once came to visit, she pleaded with him to help her. Soon after, Martinus Schryver purchased her for $105. He owned a tavern and, although the atmosphere was crude and morally questionable, it was a safer haven for Isabella.

But a year and a half later, in 1810, she was sold again to John Dumont of New Paltz, New York. Isabella suffered many hardships at the hands of Mrs. Dumont, whom Isabella later described as cruel and harsh. Although she did not explain the reasons for this treatment in her later biography narrative, historians have surmised that the unspeakable things might have been sexual abuse or harassment (see the biography on Harriet Jacobs, the only former slave to write about such), or simply the daily humiliations that slaves endured.

Sometime around 1815, she fell in love with a fellow slave named Robert, who was owned by a man named Catlin or Catton. Robert's owner forbade the relationship because he did not want his slave having children with a slave he did not own (and therefore would not own the new 'property'). One night Robert visited Isabella, but was followed by his owner and son, who beat him savagely ("bruising and mangling his head and face"), bound him and dragged him away. Robert never returned. Isabella had a daughter shortly thereafter, named Diana. In 1817, forced to submit to the will of her owner Dumont, Isabella married an older slave named Thomas. They had four children: Peter (1822), James (who died young), Elizabeth (1825), and Sophia (1826).

The state of New York began in 1799 to legislate the gradual abolition of slaves, which was to happen July 4, 1827. Dumont had promised Isabella freedom a year before the state emancipation, "if she would do well and be faithful." However, he reneged on his promise, claiming a hand injury had made her less productive. She was infuriated, having understood fairness and duty as a hallmark of the master-slave relationship. She continued working until she felt she had done enough to satisfy her sense of obligation to him -- spinning 100 pounds of wool -- then escaped before dawn with her infant daughter, Sophia. She later said:

"I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right."

Isabella wandered, not sure where she was going, and prayed for direction. She arrived at the home of Isaac and Maria Van Wagenen (Wagener?). Soon after, Dumont arrived, insisting she come back and threatening to take her baby when she refused. Isaac offered to buy her services for the remainder of the year (until the state's emancipation took effect), which Dumont accepted for $20. Isaac and Maria insisted Isabella not call them "master" and "mistress," but rather by their given names.

Isabella immediately set to work retrieving her young son Peter. He had recently been leased by Dumont to another slaveholder, who then illegally sold Peter to an owner in Alabama. Peter was five years old. First she appealed to the Dumonts, then the other slaveholder, to no avail. A friend directed her to activist Quakers, who helped her make an official complaint in court. After months of legal proceedings, Peter returned to her, scarred and abused.

During her time with the Van Wagenens, Isabella had a life-changing religious experience -- becoming "overwhelmed with the greatness of the Divine presence" and inspired to preach. She began devotedly attending the local Methodist church and, in 1829, left Ulster County with a white evangelical teacher named Miss Gear. She quickly became known as a remarkable preacher whose influence "was miraculous." She soon met Elijah Pierson, a religious reformer who advocated strict adherence to Old Testament laws for salvation. His house was sometimes called the "Kingdom," where he led a small group of followers. Isabella became the group's housekeeper. Elijah treated her as a spiritual equal and encouraged her to preach also. Soon after, Robert Matthias arrived, who apparently took over as the group's leader, with the activities becoming increasingly bizarre. In 1834, Pierson died with only the group's members attending. His family called the coroner and the group disbanded. The Folger family, whose house the group had moved into, accused Robert and Isabella of stealing their money and poisoning Elijah. They were eventually acquitted and Robert traveled west.

Isabella settled in New York City, but she had lost what savings and possessions she had had. She resolved to leave and make her way as a traveling preacher. On June 1, 1843, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth and told friends, "The Spirit calls me [East], and I must go." She wandered in relative obscurity, depending on the kindness of strangers. In 1844, still liking the utopian cooperative ideal, she joined the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Massachusetts. This group of 210 members lived on 500 acres of farmland, raising livestock, running grist and saw mills, and operating a silk factory. Unlike the Kingdom, the Association was founded by abolitionists to promote cooperative and productive labor. They were strongly anti-slavery, religiously tolerant, women's rights supporters, and pacifist in principles. While there, she met and worked with abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and David Ruggles. Unfortunately, the community's silk-making was not profitable enough to support itself and it disbanded in 1846 amid debt.

Sojourner went to live with one of the Association's founders, George Benson, who had established a cotton mill. Shortly thereafter, she began dictating her memoirs to Olive Gilbert, another Association member. The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave was published privately by William Lloyd Garrison in 1850. It gave her an income and increased her speaking engagements, where she sold copies of the book. She spoke about anti-slavery and women's rights, often giving personal testimony about her experiences as a slave. That same year, 1850, Benson's cotton mill failed and he left Northampton. Sojourner bought a home there for $300. In 1854, at the Ohio Woman's Rights Covention in Akron, Ohio, she gave her most famous speech -- with the legendary phrase, "Ain't I a Woman?" :

"That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud puddles, or gives me any best place, and ain't I a woman? ... I have plowed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me -- and ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man (when I could get it), and bear the lash as well -- and ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children and seen most all sold off to slavery and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me -- and ain't I woman?"

Sojourner later became involved with the popular Spiritualism religious movement of the time, through a group called the Progressive Friends, an offshoot of the Quakers. The group believed in abolition, women's rights, non-violence, and communicating with spirits. In 1857, she sold her home in Northampton and bought one in Harmonia, Michigan (just west of Battle Creek), to live with this community. In 1858, at a meeting in Silver Lake, Indiana, someone in the audience accused her of being a man (she was very tall, towering around six feet) so she opened her blouse to reveal her breasts.

During the Civil War, she spoke on the Union's behalf, as well as for enlisting black troops for the cause and freeing slaves. Her grandson James Caldwell enlisted in the 54th Regiment, Massachusetts. In 1864, she worked among freed slaves at a government refugee camp on an island in Virginia and was employed by the National Freedman's Relief Association in Washington, D.C. She also met President Abraham Lincoln in October. (A famous painting, and subsequent photographs of it, depict President Lincoln showing Sojourner the 'Lincoln Bible,' given to him by the black people of Baltimore, Maryland.) In 1863, Harriet Beecher Stowe's article "The Libyan Sibyl" appeared in the Atlantic Monthly; a romanticized description of Sojourner. (The previous year, William Story's statue of the same title, inspired by the article, won an award at the London World Exhibition.) After the Civil War ended, she continued working to help the newly freed slaves through the Freedman's Relief Association, then the Freedman's Hospital in Washington. In 1867, she moved from Harmonia to Battle Creek, converting William Merritt's "barn" into a house, for which he gave her the deed four years later.
In 1870, she began campaigning for the federal government to provide former slaves with land in the "new West." She pursued this for seven years, with little success. In 1874, after touring with her grandson Sammy Banks, he fell ill and she developed ulcers on her leg. Sammy died after an operation. She was successfully treated by Dr. Orville Guiteau, veterinarian, and headed off on speaking tours again, but had to return home due to illness once more. She did continue touring as much as she could, still campaigning for free land for former slaves. In 1879, Sojourner was delighted as many freed slaves began migrating west and north on their own, many settling in Kansas. She spent a year there helping refugees and speaking in white and black churches trying to gain support for the "Exodusters" as they tried to build new lives for themselves. This was to be her last mission.

Sojourner made a few appearances around Michigan, speaking about temperance and against capital punishment. In July of 1883, with ulcers on her legs, she sought treatment through Dr. John Harvey Kellogg at his famous Battle Creek Sanitarium. It is said he grafted some of his own skin onto her leg. Sojourner returned home with her daughters Diana and Elizabeth, their husbands and children, and died there on November 26, 1883, at 86 years old. She was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery next to her grandson. In 1890, Frances Titus, who published the third edition of Sojourner's Narrative in 1875 and became Sojourner's traveling companion after Sammy died, collected money and erected a monument on the gravesite, inadvertently inscribing "aged about 105 years." She then commissioned artist Frank Courter to paint the meeting of Sojourner and President Lincoln.

Sojourner Truth has been posthumously honored in many ways over the years:

A memorial stone in the Stone History Tower in Monument Park, downtown Battle Creek (1935);
A new grave marker, by the Sojourner Truth Memorial Association (1946);
A historical marker commemorating members of her family buried with her in the cemetery (1961);
A portionof Michigan state highway M-66 designated the Sojourner Truth Memorial Highway (1976);
Induction into the national Woman's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York (1981);
Induction into the Michigan Woman's Hall of Fame in Lansing (1983);
A commemorative postage stamp (1986);
A Michigan Milestone Marker by the State Bar of Michigan for her contribution (three lawsuits she won) to the legal system (1987);
A marker erected by the Battle Creek Club of the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Clubs (also 1987);
A Mars probe named for her (1997);
A community-wide, year-long celebration of the 200th anniversary of her birth in Battle Creek in 1997, plus a larger-than-life statue of her by artist Tina Allen; and
the First Black Woman Honored with a Bust in the U.S. Capitol (October, 2008)

DATE OF DEATH: November 26, 1883

Virginia Avenel Henderson

An American nurse, researcher, theorist, and author, Virginia Henderson graduated from the Army School of Nursing, Washington, D.C. in 1921. She is an expert in nursing theory and graduated from Teachers College, Columbia University, with an M.A. degree in nursing education. Henderson is famous for defining nursing as a responsibility to aid people, whether sick or not, and help them towards better health and recover under any circumstances. The International Council of Nurses honored her with the first Christianne Reimann Prize in June 1985.

Sophie Mannerheim

Sophie Mannerheim was a nurse known as a pioneer of modernizing the profession in Finland. She was trained in nursing at the Nightingale School at St. Thomas Hospital in London. Subsequently, she was appointed as head nurse of Helsinki Surgical Hospital and later elected President of the Finnish Nurses' Association, a position she held for 24 years. Baroness Sophie Mannerheim was founder of the Children's Hospital in Helsinki as well as the Mannerheim League for Children's Welfare.