Inductees Listed Alphabetically

The lifelong and continuing contributions of Ada K. Jacox span four decades and three major areas: pain management; research and scholarship; and leadership in policy development and professional organizations.

Pain management: For over 45 years, her contribution to the management of pain has, undoubtedly, relieved the pain and suffering of incalculable numbers of patients. Dr. Jacox is well recognized for the seminal role she has played in this area of nursing and health care practice.

Research and scholarship: Dr. Jacox has served as the principal investigator for numerous research grants and scientific activities. She is the author and co-author of numerous books and monographs reporting her research findings. Her research continues to inform public policy and guide practice.

Leadership: Dr. Jacox’s leadership on the ANA Board of Directors as first vice-president is one highlight of her significant and sustained involvement in professional nursing organizations. She is also a recipient of ANA’s Shirley Titus Award, demonstrating her work to promote the economic and general welfare of RNs.

Her leadership in mobilizing nurses and developing a national policy direction for funding nursing research played a significant role in the establishment of the National Center for Nursing Research, now known as the National Institute of Nursing Research.

Dr. Jacox has inspired the professional lives of countless registered nurses and nursing students. An educator for more than 40 years, she is currently a professor and research consultant at the University of Virginia School of Nursing. She has also been a professor of nursing at Wayne State University, The Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland, the University of Colorado, the University of Iowa and the University of Kansas.

Crusader for equal opportunity for blacks in nursing, Adah Belle Samuel Thoms felt a deep sense of responsibility to improve relationships between persons of all races. A graduate of Lincoln School for Nurses in New York, Thoms served 18 years there as assistant superintendent of nurses.

She became acting director at a time when blacks rarely held high-level positions. Thoms was among the first to recognize public health as a new field of nursing. In 1917, she added a course on this subject to the school's curriculum. During her seven-year term as president of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, Thoms worked for acceptance of black nurses as members of the American Red Cross. She also campaigned for equal rights for black nurses in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. Thoms was an author as well as an educator and crusader. She wrote Pathfinders: A History of the Progress of Colored Graduate Nurses. In 1936, Thoms became the first nurse to receive the Mary Mahoney Medal.

Adda Eldredge gained national and international recognition for her efforts to upgrade nursing education and promote sound legislation for nursing practice. In 1899, the Illinois State Nurses Association enlisted her help to secure passage of a nurse practice act.

In 1907, she received Registration Certificate One under the new Illinois nurse practice act. She served as president of the Illinois State Nurses Association and first vice president of the American Nurses Association (ANA). In 1917, she became interstate secretary of ANA, National League of Nursing Education, and American Journal of Nursing. During World War I, she was loaned to the Committee on Nursing of the Council of National Defense to assist the nursing student reserve program. Eldredge was a member of Sigma Theta Tau and served on the board of directors of the International Council of Nurses (ICN) and as an official ANA delegate to four ICN congresses. The Wisconsin Nurses Association established a scholarship fund in her name to assist nurses to continue their education.

Agnes K. Ohlson was born on February 20, 1902, in New Britain, Connecticut, the second of four children of Swedish immigrants, Johannes and Karlina Nelson Ohlson. Ohlson graduated from Boston's Peter Bent Brigham Hospital School of Nursing in 1926. For the next five years, she held various nursing positions at hospitals in Massachusetts.

In 1931, she received a bachelor of science degree from Teachers College, Columbia University, and was employed as director of nursing at Waterbury Hospital in Connecticut. While in this position, she held office on the board of directors of the Connecticut Nurses Association and was recommended for appointment to the Connecticut State Board of Examiners for Nursing in 1935. The following year, Ohlson became permanent secretary and chief examiner for the board and remained in that position until she retired in 1963. During that period, she earned a master of arts degree from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.

Ohlson joined the American Nurses Association early in her career and attended meetings where problems surrounding state testing for licensure were discussed. At that time, each state developed its own licensing examination, but prevailing inconsistencies in those examinations generated questions regarding their effectiveness. At issue also was concern about the difficulties underlying interstate mobility for nurses because of testing discrepancies. Troubled by disparities in the testing of candidates for registered nurse licensure in Connecticut and elsewhere, Ohlson requested the American Nurses Association to convene a meeting of state board representatives from across the country. That group eventually became a committee of the association which, together with a similar committee established by the National League of Nursing Education, worked to effect the first national qualifying examination for nurse licensure in the U.S. Between 1944 and 1950, the State Board Test Pool Examination gradually became the accepted testing model for all states. Ohlson played a vital role in forming the coalition and developing the examination.

Highly respected by national and international colleagues, Ohlson served organized nursing with distinction. Between 1950 and 1958, she held the office of secretary followed by the office of president of the American Nurses Association. In 1957, she was elected president of the International Council of Nurses. She also held various elected positions in Connecticut's professional nursing organizations. An eminent leader of the nursing profession, Ohlson received many honors during her lifetime. In 1980, she became the first recipient of the Agnes K. Ohlson Award for Outstanding Contributions to Nursing through Political Action, which was established in her honor by the Connecticut Nurses Association.

Throughout fifty years of service, Alma Elizabeth Gault contributed significantly to nursing practice, education, and integration in nursing. She received her basic nursing education from the Philadelphia General Hospital School of Nursing, where she later became head nurse.

Her account of this experience is one of her earliest articles on clinical nursing. In 1944, she became dean of Meharry Medical College School of Nursing, a black school in Nashville, TN. Gault first developed a diploma program that received accreditation and later developed a baccalaureate program which allowed Meharry to become the first segregated black school to hold membership in the American Association of Collegiate Schools of Nursing. In 1953, Gault became associate professor and then acting dean of the School of Nursing at Vanderbilt University, Nashville. She retired in 1959 as associate professor emeritus, but returned in 1965 to become dean of the school. Upon her retirement as dean, the mayor of Nashville proclaimed Alma Gault Day in recognition of her achievements.

One of America's early nurse leaders, Anna Caroline Maxwell validated the effectiveness of appropriately trained nurses during the Spanish-American War and thus influenced the establishment of the Army Nurse Corps in 1901. From 1892 to 1921, Maxwell served as the first superintendent of nurses at the Presbyterian Hospital Training School for Nurses in New York City where she devoted her career to elevating educational standards for nursing.

Born in Bristol, New York, on March 14, 1851, Maxwell moved to Canada with her parents during the early years of her childhood. Returning to the United States in 1874, she settled in Boston and entered the Boston City Hospital Training School for Nurses in 1878. Maxwell studied nursing under the supervision of Linda Richards and completed the requirements for a diploma in 1880. Following employment as superintendent of nurses in Montreal, Boston, and New York, Maxwell accepted the challenge of organizing the new training school for nurses at Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. Beginning with a two-year course of classroom instruction and clinical practice in medical/surgical nursing and obstetrics, Maxwell soon added contagious disease nursing to the curriculum. By the turn of the century, the course of study was expanded to three years and by 1917, affiliation with Teachers College provided the impetus for the establishment of a five-year program leading to a bachelor of science degree from Columbia University and a nursing diploma from Presbyterian Hospital.

An expert organizer and administrator, Maxwell was a charter member of the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses (1893), the forerunner of the National League for Nursing, and the Nurses' Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada (1897), the forerunner of the American Nurses Association. She was also a charter member of the International Council of Nurses (1899) and the American Red Cross Nursing Service (1899), and participated in founding the American Journal of Nursing and the Isabel Hampton Robb Scholarship Fund. During the Spanish-American War, Maxwell petitioned the surgeon general for permission to bring trained women nurses to military hospitals to care for the sick and wounded. Sent to a field hospital in Chickamauga, Georgia, Maxwell and her nurses found inadequate sanitation, rampant disease, and a high death rate. With skill and determination, they restored order, improved conditions, and reversed an appalling situation. During World War I, Maxwell again played a central role in preparing nurses for active military service. Following the war, she worked to achieve military rank for nurses in the armed forces.

Recognized by colleagues as one of nursing's pioneers, Maxwell was dedicated to improved nursing education, standardizing nursing procedures, and increasing public acceptance of nursing as a profession. She was the recipient of a medal from the French government for her contributions to nursing throughout the world, and was buried will full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery upon her death in 1929.

After joining the Henry Street Settlement Nursing Service, New York City, as a volunteer and staff nurse, Anne Hervey Strong became determined to devote her career to public health nursing. In 1918, she became the first director of the School of Public Health Nursing, Simmons College, a post she held until her death in 1925.

As an educator, Strong was concerned about the correlation of theoretical and practical education in nursing. She was a member of the National League of Nursing Education, National Organization for Public Health Nursing, American Child Health Association, and Massachusetts Nurses Association. After her death in 1925, the National Organization for Public Health Nursing adopted a resolution in tribute to her which read "Anne Strong, through her rare personality, keen insight, scholarly mind, and lofty vision, has stimulated careful thinking in others and has been one of those largely responsible for sound progress in public health nursing."

Damer, a member of the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), was an outstanding nursing leader at the turn of the century -- a critical time in nursing history.

She served as the leader, and often founding member, of several nursing organizations; promoted the advancement of educational standards; promoted public health care for tuberculosis patients; advocated for the temperance movement as a public health issue; and worked to secure the legal recognition of the nursing profession -- a seemingly hopeless endeavor at that time.

Damer worked as a private duty nurse for eight years and then in public health for several more. Damer was a member of the first Board of Nurse Examiners and became president of the board. She also served as president of the Buffalo Nurses Association where she was chair of the committee that organized the first state nurses association, NYSNA, of which she later served as president. She also was president of the American Journal of Nursing Company and she served for five years as the second president of the Nurses' Associated Alumnae (now known as the ANA). Damer later worked with tuberculosis patients in a hospital and started a social services department for them. In 1906, she became supervisor of a convalescent home for children.

Unfortunately, at the height of her career, she was seriously injured in a carriage accident and died five years later. At the time of her death, Annie Damer was probably one of the most well-known nurses in the country.

Known as a crusader and diplomat among nurses, Annie Warburton Goodrich was constantly active in local, state, national, and international nursing affairs.

Goodrich, a graduate of the New York Hospital Training School for Nurses, served as president of the American Nurses Association from 1915 to 1918. During her career, Goodrich was also president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Nursing, New York State Inspector for Training Schools, director of nursing service at Henry Street Settlement, professor of nursing at Teacher's College, Columbia University, and dean of the Army School of Nursing. She developed, and in 1924 became dean of, the first nursing program at Yale University. She was responsible for developing the program into the Yale Graduate School of Nursing ten years later.

In her early career, Goodrich was superintendent of nurses at New York Post-Graduate Hospital and the New York Hospital, and general superintendent of Training Schools in New York City at Bellevue and Allied.

The late Capt. Mary Lee Mills improved the quality of life for countless people around the world through her passion for public health nursing. She achieved her professional education from Lincoln Hospital School of Nursing in Durham, NC; New York University in New York City; and George Washington University in Washington, DC. Her trailblazing career transported her from a small town in North Carolina to the international stage as a nurse ambassador.

Early in her career, she practiced as a public health nurse and a nurse-midwife. In 1946, she became director of public health for the nursing certificate program at North Carolina College (now North Carolina Central University). That same year, she was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS), where she progressed to captain and served as Chief Nursing Officer from 1946-1952.

Mills received many national and international awards. Liberia vested her as Knight Official of the Liberian Humane Order of the Redemption for numerous public health initiatives. Lebanon bestowed the Order of the Cedars for her role in establishing the first school of nursing.

In 1966, Mills traveled as a consultant to the Secretary of the former U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare to Finland, Germany, and Denmark to study their national health systems. She represented the United States at public health conferences in Mexico, Canada, Australia, Italy, and Sweden.

She contributed professionally to the American Nurses Association and the North Carolina Nurses Association. During 20 years with the Office of International Health, Mills received the USPHS Distinguished Service Award and North Carolina’s highest award, Order of the Long Leaf Pine. Her portrait is featured with 33 distinguished African-Americans at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

Mills overcame racial, gender, class, and societal barriers to dramatically improve public health and nursing. A phenomenal nurse, role model, humanitarian, and international nursing leader, she died in 2010 at 98 years old.

Defying her family’s wishes that she study medicine, Claire Mintzer enrolled at Wagner College in Staten Island, New York at age 17 to study nursing. Attracted by the “gorgeous women” depicted in U.S. Army Nurse Corps posters during World War II, she decided to follow her own dream—a dream that would inspire visionary leadership for the nursing profession.

Claire Mintzer Fagin, a distinguished scholar, dean, nurse educator and patient advocate, is the first woman to serve as an Ivy League university interim president, paving the way for two women to become University of Pennsylvania presidents since she completed her tenure there in 1994. Prior to this appointment, she had been professor and dean of the School of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania. When she stepped down from the deanship, the nursing school was ranked No. 1 by U.S. News & World Report.

Dr. Fagin’s career has blended interests in consumer health and nursing. Her New York University doctoral dissertation, published in 1966, reported the relationship between the recovery of hospitalized children and their parents “rooming in.” Combined with subsequent work, this research permanently changed attitudes and rules about parental visitation in pediatric facilities.

Dr. Fagin has received 14 honorary doctoral degrees and numerous alumni, civic and professional awards. Currently, she is on the board of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, and is chair of the National Senior Citizens Law Center Board of Trustees. For five years, she served as director of the John A. Hartford Foundation, “Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity” national program, where her vision has been transformational, not only for nursing, but for the entire U.S. population.

Dr. Fagin’s impact is both her individual accomplishment and the achievement of the thousands of nurses she has advanced by setting high standards, breaking barriers, eloquently speaking for nursing, and promoting the careers of nurse leaders.

One of the nation's most courageous nurses, Clara Louise Maass lost her life during scientific studies to determine the cause of yellow fever. A graduate of Newark German Hospital Training School for Nurses, she worked as an Army nurse in Florida, Cuba, and the Philippines during the Spanish-American War.

In 1900, Maass returned to Cuba at the request of Maj. William Gorgas, chief sanitation officer. There she became embroiled in a controversy over the cause of yellow fever. To determine whether the tropical fever was caused by city filth or the bite of a mosquito, seven volunteers, including Maass, were bitten by the mosquitoes. Two men died, but she survived. Several months later she again volunteered to be bitten, this time suffering severe pain and fever. Maass died of yellow fever at the age of 25. In her memory, Newark German Hospital was renamed Clara Maass Memorial Hospital and in 1952, Cuba issued a national postage stamp in her name. In 1976, the U.S. Postal Service honored Clara Louise Maass with a commemorative stamp.

As the United States was preparing for World War I, Clara Dutton Noyes faced an enormous task -- preparing nurses for duty. Noyes, a member of the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), excelled at this and, subsequently, strengthened the nursing profession internationally.

As director of the Red Cross' Bureau of Nursing (and later as director of nursing service and chairman of the National Committee on American Red Cross Nursing), Noyes was responsible for the enrollment, organization and assignment of nurses to duty (more than 21,000 nurses by the end of the war) and the Red Cross' curriculum. For 20 years during and following World War I, she ensured the availability of nursing care in war and disaster, including providing nurses for the indigent during the Depression.

Noyes toured post-war Europe, where nurses were assigned for general relief, public health, child welfare or hospital work. Noyes then made recommendations for the development of public health services and nursing schools in Europe that impacted nursing worldwide.

Before her appointment at the Red Cross, Noyes served as a nursing and hospital superintendent at several institutions and founded the first school for midwives in the United States. She served as president of the ANA (1918-1922), the National League of Nursing Education, the board of the American Journal of Nursing and twice as vice president of the International Council of Nurses. While president of ANA, she was instrumental in bringing together the three national nursing organizations to establish a national headquarters and the Bureau of Nursing Information.

Honored in the nursing profession as an American scholar, educator, and crusader, Dorothea Lynde Dix earned universal renown for her interest, activity, and pioneer work for reform of mental institutions and psychiatric care.

Dix began her drive for improvement in the care of the mentally ill in Massachusetts in 1841. During the next 20 years, she carried the crusade to Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and into the south and west. Although she had no formal nurses training, Dix established such an impressive record of organizational skill in her humanitarian crusade that she was appointed superintendent of the female nurses of the Army by secretary of war, Simon Cameron, in 1861. Her tireless efforts led to the recruitment of more than 2,000 women to serve in the Union Army during the Civil War. At the end of the war, she returned to her lifelong crusade in psychiatric reform.

Dorothy A. Cornelius the distinction of being the only nurse to serve as president of the American Nurses Association, International Council of Nurses, and American Journal of Nursing Company.

Recipient of numerous honors and awards, including two honorary doctorates, Cornelius was recognized by government officials at national, state, and local levels.

A native of Pennsylvania, Cornelius was born on March 9, 1918, one of four children in the Cornelius family. In 1939, she received a diploma in nursing from the Conemaugh Valley Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in Johnstown and in 1942, a bachelor of science degree in nursing from the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing. She worked as a public health nurse in Johnstown and later for the American Red Cross in Pennsylvania and Ohio. From 1957 to 1983, she was executive director of the Ohio Nurses Association and editor of the Ohio Nurses Review.

In 1960, Cornelius was appointed to the American Nurses Association's Committee on Economic and General Welfare, and in 1961, to the Governor's Commission on Aging in Ohio. In 1963, she was named one of Ohio's Top Ten Women and chaired the Ohio Women's Defense Council.

Elected first vice-president of the American Nurses Association in 1964, she also chaired the association's Finance, Retirement, and Employee Relations Committees. During her presidency in 1968, the American Nurses Association experienced serious fiscal difficulties, necessitating reductions in staff and programs, and precipitating requests for additional, voluntary funds from constituents. Thousands of members overwhelmingly demonstrated their confidence in Cornelius and the association by responding with generous donations. Irrespective of the association's financial problems, Cornelius initiated collaborative relationships with the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association. For the first time, presidents and executives of those organizations met to discuss mutual goals and strategies.

In 1973, Cornelius was elected president of the International Council of Nurses and successfully kept the membership intact despite conflicts among various member countries. She continued to serve nursing and receive recognition for her accomplishments well into the 1980s. Appointed to national committees by Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, she received commendations from the governors of Ohio and Pennsylvania, and the Ohio Senate and House of Representatives. A charismatic leader, remarkable conciliator, and expert strategist, Dorothy A. Cornelius personified professionalism and excellence.

Dorothy Smith, a Florida Nurses Association member, was a national pioneer in nursing education who served as founding dean of the University of Florida College of Nursing and chief of nursing practice at the university's teaching hospital. Smith led the college from its inception in 1956 until her retirement in 1971, creating national recognition of the program by introducing several important nursing innovations.

Her belief that clinical nursing practice was the essence of professional nursing motivated all her innovative contributions to nursing, including: fully integrating nursing education and nursing service (which laid the groundwork for advanced practice registered nursing); fully integrating nursing education into the university; and insisting that nurses in the university's teaching hospital develop a written plan of care and systematically evaluate patient's responses (known as evidence-based nursing practice today). Smith also insisted that nursing educators be directly involved in nursing care, an idea which was unheard of then. Until Smith developed the "unification model," nursing was taught as an apprentice-like technical training program in hospitals. Her work helped nursing education become a science-based curriculum at top universities.

Prior to coming to the University of Florida to help implement one of the first interdisciplinary health sciences centers in the country, Smith was a professor at Duke University School of Nursing. Smith authored more than 30 articles and co-wrote a textbook called System of Nursing Practice.

Dorothy Reilly was an internationally known nurse, educator and scholar who was instrumental in the development of nursing education in the United States and abroad. She wrote her first book, Lippincott's Quick Reference Book for Nurses, in 1955 and wrote prolifically about nursing education throughout her career. She also was a consultant to nursing schools around the world and taught future nursing school faculty.

Reilly, a member of the Michigan Nurses Association, began her career as a hospital head nurse and then focused on nursing education. She held faculty positions at Holyoke Hospital of Nursing, Columbia University and Wayne State University College of Nursing. In 1987, she retired from Wayne State, became a professor emerita and, until her death, volunteered her time obtaining grants for clinics in Detroit and scholarships for college students.

Reilly first became a teacher during World War II, a time when " nursing school residence...was an effective means of protecting young women and regulating their lives in accord with the values of a 'proper lady.' Reilly, who had studied in a women's liberal arts college, hoped to make teaching more satisfying for students and teachers. She often used unique teaching methods to bring the textbooks to life and strengthen the teacher-student relationship. Her innovative outreach approaches to graduate nursing education were acknowledged by the National Institutes of Health with a decade of funding awards totaling nearly $3 million. Reilly received many awards and honors for her work, including several American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year awards.

Effie J. Taylor gained international recognition as a pioneer in psychiatric and mental health nursing and as the leader who held the international nursing community together during World War II. Five years after graduation, Taylor was eventually appointed associate principal for the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at Johns Hopkins, the first university clinic of its kind.

From 1934 until her retirement in 1944, Taylor became the dean of the Yale University School of Nursing. In 1937, she became president of the International Council of Nurses and served ten years as the organization dealt with the turmoil of World War II. She received the Medal for Humanitarian Work from Finland and was made an honorary member of the National Council of Nurses of Finland, Danish Nurses Association, and Norwegian Nurses Association. She also received the Florence Nightingale Medal of the International Red Cross and the M. Adelaide Nutting Award of the National League for Nursing. She received an honorary master of arts degree from Yale University and an honorary degree as a doctor of humane letters from Keuka College, New York.

During her distinguished career, Eleanor C. Lambertsen made a profound and immeasurable impact on the nursing profession that has continued long after her death in 1998. An esteemed leader in nursing education in New York State, nationally, and internationally, she pioneered the concept of “team nursing,” which revolutionized the organization and delivery of nursing and health care by placing registered professional nurses in the primary interdisciplinary leadership role.

She began her nursing career in the 1930s at Overlook Hospital in New Jersey. Upon completion of her doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University, and serving as a faculty member, she went on to hold leadership positions at the American Hospital Association. She later returned to Teachers College as Helen Hartley Chair of the Nursing Department and director of the Division of Health Sciences. In 1970, she became dean of the Cornell University-New York Hospital School of Nursing and in 1974, senior associate director of nursing.

A student described Lambertsen as a champion of advanced practice who was willing to stand up to the power structure with determination and grit. Her influence made it possible for generations of clinical nurse specialists and nurse practitioners to practice their art and science independently.

Lambertsen served the profession as president of the American Nurses Foundation, chair of the National Commission for the Study of Nursing and Education, and nursing consultant to the U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare’s Report on the Study to Extend the Role of Nurses. She was proud of her work as consultant to the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) Special Committee to Study the Nurse Practice Act, which resulted in a model used throughout the nation.

Among many honors and accolades, she received the highest recognition awards of NYSNA and the American Nurses Association.

Committed to strengthening the profession of nursing and the American Nurses Association as its professional organization, Elizabeth Kerr Porter was a leader in nursing education and an advocate for nurses' rights. She spoke out in support of economic security for nurses and defended their right to organize for the purpose of achieving that security.

A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and an accomplished pianist, Porter's early career was as a teacher. Following the death of her husband, she chose to become a nurse, entered the Western Pennsylvania Hospital School of Nursing, and received her diploma in 1930. In 1935, she earned a bachelor of science degree from Teachers College, Columbia University, and the following year, a master of science degree from the University of Pennsylvania. In 1946, she fulfilled the requirements for a doctorate in education, also from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, where she coordinated the advanced clinical nursing program and achieved the rank of professor. Appointed to the faculty of the Francis Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Cleveland's Case Western Reserve University in 1949, she was professor and director of the graduate program in nursing and was named dean in 1953.

At the time of her appointment as dean, Porter was in her second term of office as president of the American Nurses Association, an organization of approximately 175,000 members. During her presidency, she played a pivotal role in: strengthening the association's economic security program; improving employment conditions for nurses; increasing nursing representation on national boards and commissions; eliminating racial restrictions to membership in the association; forming a National Student Nurses' Council; and consolidating the six existing national nursing organizations into two major associations.

In 1954, Porter was honored with a Pennsylvania Ambassadorial Award given in recognition of her achievements. In addition, she was the recipient of the Shirley Titus Award from the American Nurses Association, the Florence Nightingale Medal from the International Red Cross, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. She served as president of the Ohio Nurses Association form 1958 to 1960, vice president of the American Nurses Foundation, and board member of the National Health Council. An expert educational administrator, Porter's contributions and unparalleled leadership are legendary. She believed that nursing, through its professional organization, could be an instrument for change and reminded nurses in 1952 that, "the American Nurses Association can be only as strong as individuals are strong for collective action, and that strength must be fostered in district and state groups."

The accomplishments of Elizabeth Sterling Soule during her 43-year career include contributions to nursing education, public health nursing, and organized nursing. In 1920, she accepted a temporary position with the University of Washington as an instructor of public health nursing.

This temporary affiliation became a 30-year appointment during which she built the university's School of Nursing. A staunch proponent of baccalaureate nursing education programs, Soule was among the 20 original representatives of collegiate nursing programs who formed the Association of Collegiate Schools of Nursing and became the organization's president. She was a member of the board of directors of the American Nurses Association and an honorary member of the National League of Nursing Education. Soule was a national honorary member of Sigma Theta Tau and was named Alumnus Summa Laude Dignatus. She received an honorary doctor of science degree from Montana State College.

A pioneer in nursing research, Ellwynne Mae Vreeland served 23 years as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Public Health Service. She was instrumental in securing nearly $3.5 million under the Bolton Act to fund education for 10,000 graduate students in 57 colleges and universities nationwide.

Her most outstanding achievement was the development and implementation of the first nationwide federal extramural research program for nursing. In 1962, she became chief of the Research and Resources Branch of the Division of Nursing, Public Health Service, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. During Vreeland's tenure with the Public Health Service, the emphasis of research shifted from nursing education, service, and manpower issues to studies of clinical nursing and its effect on patients. As early as 1968, she supported the establishment of a National Institute of Nursing in the National Institutes of Health. In 1966, two years before her retirement, she received the United States Public Health Service Medal.

A prominent leader in public health nursing, Emilie Gleason Sargent contributed significantly to improving health care for the elderly and the chronically ill. After receiving a diploma from Mt. Sinai School of Nursing, New York, she became field director and assistant director of the Detroit Visiting Nursing Association (VNA) in Michigan, where she served as executive director from 1924 until her retirement in 1964.

In appreciation of her many achievements, the VNA staff established the Emilie Gleason Sargent Prize, to be awarded annually to a public health nurse in the School of Public Health, University of Michigan. Sargent served as president of Detroit District Nurses Association, Michigan Public Health Association, and National Organization for Public Health Nursing. She was a member of the board of directors of the American Journal of Nursing Company, American Nurses Association, and National League for Nursing. She was vice president and a fellow of the American Public Health Association. She received the ANA Pearl McIver Public Health Nurse Award in 1960.

Estelle Massey Osborne was the first black nurse in the U.S. to earn a master's degree. In 1945, she became assistant professor at New York University, the university's first black instructor.

As president of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, Osborne increased membership and forged relationships with the American Nurses Association (ANA), National League for Nursing, and National Organization for Public Health Nursing. In 1946, she received the Mary Mahoney Award for her efforts to broaden opportunities for black nurses to move into the mainstream of professional nursing. A member of the ANA Board of Directors from 1948-1952, Osborne was an ANA delegate to the International Council of Nurses. She was a member of the National Urban League, first vice-president of the National Council of Negro Women, and an honorary member of Chi Eta Phi Sorority and the American Academy of Nursing. In 1982, the Estelle M. Osborne Memorial Scholarship was established to annually honor a black nurse pursuing a master's degree in nursing.

As superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps from 1943 to 1947, and the first woman to be commissioned in the regular army of the United States, Florence Aby Blanchfield was among the most respected nurse leaders of the twentieth century. Devoting a significant part of her illustrious career to serving her country, Blanchfield's military experiences included meritorious service in World War I and World War II.

Born April 1, 1882, in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, Blanchfield was one of eight children of Joseph and Mary Anderson Blanchfield. Her goal to become a nurse was achieved in 1906, when she graduated from Southside Hospital Training School for Nurses in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Blanchfield's early employment history includes positions in private duty nursing, hospital nursing in Pennsylvania and the Panama Canal Zone, and industrial nursing for the United States Steel Corporation. In 1917, she joined the Army Nurse Corps, left for France with Base Hospital #27, and served as acting chief nurse of Camp Hospital #15.

Following separation from the military in 1919, Blanchfield returned to Pennsylvania for a brief period and re-entered the Army Nurse Corps in 1920. Over the next fifteen years, Blanchfield completed assignments across the United States, and in the Philippines and China. In 1935, she joined the United States Surgeon General's staff in Washington, DC, and was named superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps in 1943. World War II generated a critical need for nurses and under the leadership of Blanchfield, the corps was expanded from approximately 1,000 to a force of 57,000 nurses. In recognition of her devotion and contributions, she was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in 1945.

Although Blanchfield successively held the ranks of first lieutenant (1920), captain (1939), and lieutenant colonel (1942), those ranks were relative in nature. Nurses were denied the rights, privileges, and pay enjoyed by male commissioned officers. Appalled by this inequity, Blanchfield struggled to achieve full military rank for nurses. In 1947, the Army-Navy Nurse Act authorized placement of the Army Nurse Corps in the regular army with equal pay and privileges for commissioned nurses. On July 18, 1947, Blanchfield was commissioned as lieutenant colonel in the regular army by General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Following her retirement in 1947, Blanchfield remained active as a consultant and author. She promoted the establishment of specialized courses of study and influenced the development of a program in nursing administration for army nurses. In 1951, she received the Florence Nightingale Medal of the International Red Cross for her service to humanity. Blanchfield died on May 12, 1971, and was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. As a final tribute to this extraordinary nurse, the Colonel Florence A. Blanchfield Army Community Hospital at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was named in her honor and dedicated in September, 1982.

Acknowledged nationally and internationally as a distinguished pediatric nurse and an advocate for advanced education in pediatric nursing, Florence Guinness Blake was also an eminent scholar, teacher, and researcher.

Blake was born in Wisconsin on November 30, 1907, to Thelma Dunlap Blake, a talented musician, and James Blake, a Baptist minister. In her youth, Blake was encouraged by family members to choose a career in nursing, and she subsequently entered the Michael Reese Hospital School of Nursing in Chicago, where she earned a diploma in 1928. By 1932, Blake's interest in improving the care of children had grown to the extent that she enrolled in Teachers College, Columbia University, for preparation as a teacher of pediatric nursing. Completing the requirements for a bachelor of science degree in 1936, Blake taught pediatric nursing at Union Medical College in Peiping, China for the next three years. During that time, she refined her innovative ideas regarding the relationship between advanced clinical education and nursing practice.

After attaining a master of science degree from the University of Michigan in 1941, Blake taught pediatric nursing at several prestigious schools, and in 1946, established and directed the graduate program in advanced nursing care of children at the University of Chicago. A prolific writer, Blake authored the classic, The Child, His Parents, and the Nurse, and co-authored various editions of Essentials of Pediatric Nursing, and Nursing Care of Children, both of which were outstanding textbooks in the discipline. A recipient of numerous awards for her achievements, Blake was frequently consulted by national organizations concerned with child care.

In the final years of her career, she served as professor and director of the graduate program in pediatric nursing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing, where she inspired and challenged nursing students, nurse colleagues, and the physicians with whom she collaborated. Following her retirement in 1970, Blake continued her involvement in community affairs until her death on September 12, 1983.

A pioneer in advanced clinical education, Florence Blake left a legacy of nursing knowledge that continues to influence the care of children in the United States and abroad.

Pioneer of the hospice movement in the U.S., Florence S. Wald envisioned the need to maximize the quality of life for the terminally ill. Following a trip to England in the late 1960s to assess the care delivered at Saint Christopher's Hospice near London, Wald returned to this country and implemented a feasibility study to determine the need for a hospice in Connecticut. Since that time, her exemplary work with the dying has influenced the further development of hospice care throughout the nation.

Born Florence Sophie Schorske on April 19, 1917, in New York City, she was the younger of two children and attended school in Scarsdale, New York, where the family moved when she was a small child. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a bachelor of arts degree in 1938 and, in 1941, received a master's degree in nursing from Yale University School of Nursing. In 1959, she married Henry Wald whom she credits with being a constant, supportive force in her life. Florence Wald, passed away at her home in Connecticut on November 8, 2008 at the age of 91.

Wald began her nursing career as a staff nurse with the New York Visiting Nurse Service. Ensuing positions included six years as a research assistant in the Surgical Metabolism Unit of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York and two years as an instructor at Rutgers University School of Nursing in New Jersey. In 1957, she was employed as assistant professor of psychiatric nursing at Yale University School of Nursing and in 1959 was appointed dean and associate professor, a position she retained for nine years. From 1969 to 1970, Wald continued at Yale as a research associate and from 1970 to 1980 served as clinical associate professor. At the same time, she was a member of the board and an integral part of the planning staff of Hospice Incorporated in Branford, Connecticut, the first hospice in the United States. Recognizing that the terminally ill have unique needs, Wald developed a hospice model that provides holistic and humanistic care for the dying person and requires appropriate understanding of the concepts of death and dying among nurses giving care in the hospice environment.

Wald’s most recent work included bringing the hospice model of compassion and dignity in death to the Connecticut Correctional Facilities. Since its implementation, over 150 inmate volunteers have been trained to be hospice volunteers within state correctional facilities. This model is now being translated to the state Veterans' Homes through a grant received at Yale School of Nursing by the Beatrice Renfield Foundation.

Florence Wald has published widely and earned many distinctions, including a Founders Award from the National Hospice Association, a Distinguished Woman of Connecticut Award from the governor of Connecticut, fellowship in the American Academy of Nursing, and three honorary doctoral degrees. Further, the Connecticut Nurses Association established the Florence S. Wald Award for Outstanding Contributions to Nursing Practice in her honor.

After earning a master of arts degree in teaching biological sciences from Teachers College, Columbia University, Frances Reiter later became a professor at the college. She left Teachers College in 1960 to become the first dean of the Graduate School of Nursing, New York, Medical College. She retired as dean emeritus in 1969. Reiter coined the term "nurse clinician" and advocated the need for advanced preparation for nurse clinicians.

She was chairperson of the American Nurses Association Committee on Education when the first position paper on nursing education was published. Reiter received the Honorary Membership Award, American Nurses Association; Florence Nightingale Award, International Red Cross; Distinguished Service Award, National League for Nursing; and the Medal of Excellence, New York Medical College. She was a honorary fellow of the American Academy of Nursing.

Harriet Patience Dame's leadership, advocacy, innovation and expert ability to provide holistic care to the sick and wounded stands as a true testament to the nursing profession.

The Civil War nurse's advocacy led to a dramatic change in the way the military delivered health care. And she repeatedly rose to challenges presented to her no matter how monumental.

When Union General Joseph Hooker announced that all soldiers who could not walk to Harrison's Landing, VA, would be left behind to certain death, Dame first organized the sick and wounded so they could help each other during the 120-mile trek and later won space for them on wagons. Her leadership saved the lives of many.

A selfless caregiver, the New Hampshire native was appointed matron of the 18th Corps Hospital at Broadway, where for several months she served as the sole nurse. She also convinced the Surgeon General to ensure that every military boat had proper hospital accommodations, supplies and at least one surgeon on board.

She served as the second president of the Army Nurses Association, and because of her service, a Senate bill was introduced in the 48th Congress to provide pensions to nurses who worked on the battlefield or in hospitals during the Civil War.

A pioneer in the field of nursing, Hattie Bessent, EdD, MSN, RN, FAAN, has demonstrated leadership qualities throughout her years of service. Bessent’s numerous achievements have had a lasting impact on generations
of nurses.

Bessent was the first African-American nurse and woman to receive a Career Teachers Grant from the National Institute of Mental Health; a doctorate from
Florida A & M University at Tallahassee, and was also the first African American nurse to receive tenure at the University of Florida. While at the University of Florida, she was appointed to the Tenure and Promotion Committee and taught in the Psychological Foundations Department. Bessent held a position of full professor and graduate dean at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. Bessent’s numerous articles have appeared in the most prestigious journals in nursing. Additionally, Bessent has delivered presentations across the nation, and in South Africa and New Zealand.

Her administrative and management experience includes serving more than 20 years as the longest deputy executive director of the ANA Minority Fellowship Program from 1977 to 1982. As the deputy executive director, she headed two grants to train minority nurses in the mental health disciplines, including directing the Allstate Nursing Scholarship for American Indian/Alaskan Natives. In this role, she was able to provide funding supporting the education of minority nurses, serving as an advocate on behalf of minorities, and as a consultant to government agencies, psychiatric nursing programs, high schools and institutions of higher learning.

Bessent is the recipient of some of the most distinguished honors in nursing and has received awards from the American Academy of Nursing, ANA, and the National League for Nursing. Additionally, Bessent has been inducted into the Royal College of Nursing in London, England, and recognized for her “lifelong pursuit to improve access to care for all people,” through her passion for nurses around the world.

Helen Lathrop Bunge began her career in 1931. After earning her doctoral degree from Teachers College, Bunge became executive officer of the Institute of Research and Services in Nursing Education at Teachers College. During her six years there, the Institute administered 13 projects related to nursing education, using data gathered from schools, hospitals, and public health services. In 1952, Bunge's efforts to promote nursing research culminated in circulation of the first issue of Nursing Research to 8,500 subscribers. When this publication was undertaken by the American Journal of Nursing Company, she was served as chairperson of the editorial board. In recognition of her efforts, she received the Achievement Award in Research and Scholarship from the Nursing Education Alumni Association's Teachers College and the Mary Adelaide Nutting Award from the National League for Nursing.

Hildegard Peplau, the "mother of psychiatric nursing," was a true pioneer in the development of the theory and practice of psychiatric and mental health nursing. Her achievements, including her revolutionary work in patient-nurse relationships, are valued by nurses around the world and her ideas have been incorporated into virtually every nursing specialty and into the practices of other health care professionals.

Peplau introduced the "nurse-patient relationship" idea 40 years ago, a time when patients did not actively participate in their own care. Peplau's publications, including her classic book, Interpersonal Relations in Nursing, have been translated into several languages.

Throughout her career, Peplau, a member of the New Jersey State Nurses Association, actively contributed to the ANA by serving on various committees and task forces. She is the only person to have been both the executive director and the president of ANA. She was a member of many local, state and federal nursing committees and a consultant to many organizations, including the World Health Organization and the U.S. Air Force.

Peplau was committed to nursing education throughout her career. She was a visiting professor at schools around the world and a professor at Rutgers University until her retirement in 1974. She was a professor emerita at Rutgers University, College of Nursing. She received numerous awards and honors for her contributions to nursing and held 11 honorary degrees.

Imogene King, EdD, MSN, RN, FAAN, is universally recognized as a pioneer of nursing theory development and theory-based nursing practice. As one of the original nurse theorists, King has made an enduring impact on nursing education, practice and research while serving as a consummate, active leader in professional nursing. Internationally known for her “Theory of Goal Attainment,” King has worked with nurses worldwide in Africa, Canada, Germany, Japan, Sweden, Denmark, and most recently, China, to shape professional nursing practice, scholarship and education. Her theory has relevance and value in increasingly diverse and outcome-oriented systems for the delivery of nursing and health care. Her nursing paradigm is an important model for health care in the 21st century and beyond.

King’s legacy of service spans nearly six decades. Her enduring contributions to ANA notably include the first ANA Committee, in 1965, to plan clinical conferences and, more recently, serving as the Southeastern representative to the ANA Code of Ethics Task Force. King was the 1996 recipient of ANA’s Jessie M. Scott Award for demonstrating the interdependent relationships among nursing education, nursing practice, and nursing research. She has served in elected and appointed positions as a voice for the profession at international, national and state levels and is known for asking relevant, critical questions that commanded evidence-based decision-making for the future of nursing and health care.

In addition, King has consistently demonstrated her willingness to mentor nurses and students across all roles and settings. Most importantly, King role models nurses’ responsibility to actively contribute to the advancement of the profession. As a result, she has personally influenced the life, community, and profession of nurses and nursing.

The American Nurses Association's first president, Isabel Adams Hampton Robb, was the nursing profession's prime mover in organizing at the national level. In 1896, Robb organized the group known as the Nurses' Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada. The group was renamed the American Nurses Association in 1911. Earlier, in 1893, Robb gathered together a nucleus of women who were superintendents of schools and founded the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses.

This organization became the National League of Nursing Education in 1912. Robb was one of the original members of the committee to found the American Journal of Nursing. While serving as superintendent of nurses at the Illinois Training School at Chicago and principal of the Training School for Nurses at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Robb was responsible for initiating many improvements in nursing education. She was a graduate of the Bellevue Hospital Training School for Nurses which she entered in 1881.

Prolific author and leader in the development of nursing school curriculum, Isabel Maitland Stewart also was instrumental in the early development of nursing research. Stewart spent her early years in Canada, then entered the program for nurses at Teachers College, Columbia University. At Teachers College, she earned both B.S. and M.A. degrees.

In 1925, she succeeded Adelaide Nutting as chairman of the Department of Nursing Education at Teachers College. In that capacity she was involved in writing three classics: The Standard Curriculum for Schools of Nursing, A Curriculum for Schools of Nursing and A Curriculum Guide for Schools of Nursing.Stewart co-authored A Short History of Nursing with Lavinia Dock and A History of Nursing with Anne Austin. During her career at Teachers College, Stewart participated in many early nursing research studies. She was not only recognized as a nursing leader, but also earned a national reputation as an eminent historian.

Jane Arminda Delano was the central figure in uniting the work of the Nurses' Associated Alumnae (renamed the American Nurses Association in 1911), Army Nurse Corps, and American Red Cross. From 1909-1912, she served as president of the Nurses' Associated Alumnae and became superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps. She resigned her army position in 1912 to give full time to the Red Cross. After 1905, the year the Red Cross was reorganized, she worked closely with that organization and the Nurses' Associated Alumnae to develop a nursing reserve for the Army Nurse Corps. Through her efforts, over 8,000 well prepared nurses were available when the United States entered World War I. Perhaps her greatest achievement was helping supply 20,000 professional nurses to meet the needs of that war. She died in Europe while in wartime service.

Nurse executive, journalist, editor, researcher, and consultant, Janet M. Geister conducted one of the first governmental studies of children's day care centers. In 1917, the Children's Bureau conducted the campaign, "Save 100,000 lives," based upon her studies.

In 1919, she became field secretary and then educational secretary of the National Organization for Public Health Nursing, where she conducted surveys and studies of nursing education, visiting nursing, and hospitals. Geister became executive director of the American Nurses Association (ANA) in 1927. She served as first vice-president and member of the ANA board of directors. Geister was active in the American Association of Industrial Nurses, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, and Association of Operating Room Nurses. Editor of Trained Nurse and Hospital Review, Geister was the author of over 300 articles on nursing and health care.

Although John F. Garde is no longer with us, the far reaching and long-lasting impact that resulted from his leadership lives on. A 1956 graduate of the Alexian Brothers Hospital School of Nursing, Mr. Garde wasted no time pursuing his ambition of becoming a nurse anesthetist. In 1957, he earned a diploma from St. Francis Hospital School of Anesthesia in La Crosse, Wisconsin. That was the beginning of his long and successful career as a pioneering advocate for registered nurses and nurse anesthetists.

Mr. Garde was the first man and the youngest nurse anesthetist to be elected president of the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) in 1972. Just eight years later, he joined the AANA staff as education director, and in 1983, he was appointed as AANA executive director.

Mr. Garde’s influence in moving nurse anesthesia programs into graduate schools and the establishment of the AANA’s formidable federal policy role manifested in the establishment of the AANA Washington office of federal government affairs. Mr. Garde skillfully led the successful campaign that resulted in direct Medicare reimbursement for certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) – the first non-physician group to receive Medicare reimbursement. This achievement led to Medicare reimbursement for other advanced practice registered nurses.

Mr. Garde’s influence is far-reaching. He was instrumental in assisting the global community of nurse anesthetists with the formation of the International Federation of Nurse Anesthetists (IFNA), which led to the elevation of International Nurse Anesthesia Quality Assurance and Education Standards. Mr. Garde won several prestigious awards during his 50-year career, highlighted by his induction into the American Academy of Nursing in 1994.

Best known as a nurse historian and educator, Josephine A. Dolan’s name is familiar to generations of nurses who learned of their professional heritage through her lifelong teaching, research, and publications. For 25 years, her textbook on the history of nursing, “Nursing in Society: a Historical Perspective,” was the most widely used text of its kind, influencing students nationally and internationally. Respected and admired by colleagues and students, Dolan, who died in 2004, gave nursing a lasting legacy from which to learn.

Dolan embarked on her career by earning a diploma in nursing from the St. John’s Hospital School in Lowell, MA in 1932. She later completed her master’s degree in nursing from Boston University. Dolan was the first faculty member hired by the University of Connecticut’s new School of Nursing in 1944, where she taught for 35 years. She encouraged nursing students to pursue higher education and advocated for the professionalism of nursing during the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s. She helped transform nursing from hospital-based training to an academic-based education and was progressive in her thinking by using state of the art video technology as a heuristic tool.

Awards and honors recognize Dolan’s service to the profession. Among these, the National League for Nursing’s first Distinguished Service Award was conferred on Dolan in 1972. The Connecticut Nurses Association and Sigma Theta Tau International both established awards in her name recognizing aspects of her excellence in other nurses. In 1974, Rhode Island College honored Dolan’s teaching with an honorary Doctor of Pedagogy. Boston College conferred a Doctor of Nursing Science recognizing her humanistic perspective on nursing. She was appointed to the National League for Nursing’s Committee on Historical Source Materials.

Dolan recognized the importance of collecting and preserving nursing artifacts and used them to illustrate her teaching. Dolan’s impact continues through her extensive collection of historical nursing documents, artifacts, and memorabilia donated to the University of Connecticut’s School of Nursing.

Julia Catherine Stimson was the first woman to receive the rank of major in the United States Army. She earned this distinction in 1920 while superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps. When Congress amended the National Defense Act in that year, giving members of the Army Nurse Corps relative rank, the head of the corps received the rank of major.

Stimson had served in the Army Nurse Corps during World War I. In 1918, less than a year after her arrival in Europe, she was assigned as chief nurse of the American Red Cross. In France, seven months later, she became director of nursing services of the American Expeditionary Forces in France. She returned to the U.S. in 1919 and became dean of the Army School of Nursing and Superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps, positions she held until 1932. After full commissioned rank was granted to army nurses, Stimson, a former president of the American Nurses Association, was promoted to the rank of colonel six weeks before her death.

From 1951 to 1972, Julia Charlotte Thompson was director of the American Nurses Association's (ANA) Washington, DC office and served as the association's first full-time lobbyist.

As a lobbyist, she worked to improve Social Security benefits for the disabled and retired, and for the passage of Medicare legislation. In 1965, she traveled with President Lyndon Johnson to Independence, Missouri, for the signing of the Medicare bill. She was successful in convincing Congress to grant registered nurses in the military the ranks commensurate with their responsibili- ties. In 1956, her efforts to gain federal support for nursing education were rewarded with the passage of the first nurse traineeship program. She was also instrumental in securing passage of the Nurse Training Acts of 1964 and 1971. Thompson retired in 1972, but continued to serve ANA as a consultant while completing her book, The ANA in Washington, a summary of the federal legislative activities of ANA during her directorship.

Katharine Densford Dreves is best remembered for her contributions to organized nursing and to nursing education. From 1944 to 1948, Dreves served two consecutive terms as the American Nurses Association (ANA) president.

During her presidency, the ANA Professional Counseling and Placement Service and the Economic Security Program were initiated and the association's first platform was adopted to remove the barriers against minority group nurses seeking ANA membership. As vice-president of the International Council of Nurses, she was the official observer at meetings of the World Health Organization and Pan American Health Organization and represented ANA at the first national conference of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization in 1948. Dreves also served as president of the Minnesota Nurses Association, Minnesota League for Nursing, and Sigma Theta Tau.

An early proponent of nursing research as a priority activity for the development of nursing science, Katherine J. Hoffman was one of the founders of the Western Society for Research in Nursing. She was equally committed to graduate education for nurses and assisted in the establishment of the Western Council for Higher Education in Nursing.

The first nurse in the state of Washington to earn a PhD (1956), she became one of the highest ranking women administrators at the University of Washington.

Hoffman was born April 18, 1910, in Grand Forks, British Columbia, and moved to Tacoma, Washington, with her family in 1923. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in English Literature in 1929, and a diploma in nursing from Tacoma General Hospital School of Nursing in 1934. While working as a night supervisor, she completed the requirements for an advanced obstetrical nursing certificate, and in 1937, began her career as a nurse educator at the College of Puget Sound and Pacific Lutheran College. In 1941, Hoffman earned a master's degree in nursing and fifteen years later the doctorate, both from the University of Washington in Seattle.

During her thirty-four year career in nursing education, Hoffman served as mentor to countless students and colleagues. Her commitment to scientific study was exemplified by the nurse-scientist program she established at the University of Washington in 1963. The program enabled nurses pursuing doctoral study to undertake research in scientific disciplines like microbiology, physiology, and anthropology. Hoffman was dedicated to the expansion of scientific principles in nursing and the use of those principles in the advancement of nursing practice. An expert in curriculum development and program evaluation, Hoffman was a consultant to many nursing schools across the country. Her educational ideas were student oriented, interdisciplinary in nature, and research focused. Highly respected in the University of Washington community, Hoffman's ability to promote collaboration among various disciplines was an asset in the formation of a health sciences center.

Hoffman was a charter member of the American Academy of Nursing and an active participant in professional organizations, including the American Nurses Association, National League for Nursing, and Washington State Nurses Association. She was consistently involved in advisory groups studying professional standards, educational criteria, and research development. Upon her retirement in 1975, Hoffman was named professor emeritus in recognition of her years of service and outstanding contributions to the University of Washington. Acknowledged for her remarkable achievements, Katherine Hoffman is also remembered for her warmth, compassion, and ability to relate to others.

A staunch advocate of legislation to control nursing practice, Lavinia Lloyd Dock is also remembered for her outstanding contributions to nursing literature.

She graduated from Bellevue Training School for Nurses in 1886 and soon after became night supervisor at Bellevue. As both student and supervisor, Dock became aware of the problems students faced in studying drugs and solutions. As a result, she wrote Materia Medica for Nurses, one of the first nursing textbooks. In addition to serving as foreign editor of the American Journal of Nursing, she wrote Hygiene and Morality, and in 1907, co-authored with Adelaide Nutting the first two volumes of the four-volume History of Nursing. Volumes III and IV were completed by Dock alone in 1912. During her multi-faceted career, Dock worked with Lillian Wald at Henry Street Settlement and with Isabel Hampton Robb at Johns Hopkins School for Nursing. She was also secretary of the International Council of Nurses for more than 20 years. Throughout her life, she was a devoted suffragette and political activist.

Champion of the urban poor, Lillian D. Wald was a visionary leader and outstanding humanitarian. In 1893, two years after graduation from the New York Hospital Training School for Nurses, Wald founded the forerunner of the Henry Street Settlement. Henry Street eventually evolved into the Visiting Nurse Service of New York City. For more than 40 years, Wald directed the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service, at the same time tirelessly opposing political and social corruption. She helped initiate revision of child labor laws, improved housing conditions in tenement districts, enactment of pure food laws, education for the mentally handicapped, and passage of enlightened immigration regulations. Wald was instrumental in establishing the United States Children's Bureau, school nursing, and rural nursing in the Red Cross Town and Country Nursing Service. As first president of the National Organization for Public Health Nursing, Wald delivered an inaugural address which suggested a national health insurance plan. She is also in the Hall of Fame of New York University.

America's first trained nurse, Linda Anne Judson Richards, has long been recognized for her significant innovations in the nursing profession. Richards, who graduated from the New England Hospital for Women and Children in 1873, introduced the concept of keeping patient records, such as nurse's notes and doctor's orders. She also instituted the practice of nurses wearing uniforms. Richards added another "first" to her professional record when she became the first stockholder in the American Journal of Nursing.

She bought the initial share of stock for $100. Richards brought credit to nursing for her pioneer work in industrial and psychiatric nursing and for her missionary work in Japan. In 1911, she was named Emeritus Superintendent of Nurses at Taunton Asylum. Earlier in her career, Richards served as the first Superintendent of Nurses at Massachusetts General Hospital. In that capacity, she developed the program and proved that trained nurses gave better care than those without formal nurses training.

Best known for her commitment to nursing research, Lucille Elizabeth Notter collaborated in the development of the journal, Nursing Research, as a vehicle for the dissemination of scientific inquiry in nursing. As the journal's first full-time editor, she influenced nurses to engage in research for the improvement of patient care.

Notter was also the driving force behind publication of the International Nursing Index, and was its editor from 1965 to 1973. By providing access to articles in nursing and health related journals, the index was an important contribution to nurse researchers.

Notter was born in Kentucky on July 13, 1907, the eldest of five children. After graduating from high school, she worked as a clerk in a hospital in Indiana. In 1931, Notter received a diploma from Saints Mary and Elizabeth Hospital School of Nursing in Louisville, Kentucky, and between 1932 and 1940 held various positions at Michael Reese Hospital School of Nursing in Chicago. From 1941 to 1950, Notter was employed by the Visiting Nurse Service of New York and later by the Visiting Nurse Association of Brooklyn. At the same time, she completed a bachelor of science degree in nursing education (1941), a master of arts degree in public health nursing supervision (1946), and a doctor of education degree in educational administration (1956), all from Teachers College, Columbia University.

A recognized scholar and distinguished writer, Notter authored Essentials of Nursing Research, and co-authored with Eugenia K. Spalding Professional Nursing: Foundations, Perspectives, and Relationships. During her tenure as editor of Nursing Research and International Nursing Index, Notter served as director of the American Nurses Association's research conferences which provided a forum for the exchange of scientific data and generated increased interest in scholarly inquiry. Notter's influence on the dissemination of research outcomes was significant. She believed that research was not complete until the findings were shared with other researchers as well as with those who could apply the findings to their practice. As testimony to her contributions, Notter received numerous awards and honors, including the Distinguished Service to Public Health Nursing Award from the American Public Health Association, and Honorary Recognition for Distinguished Service to the Nursing Profession from the New York State Nurses Association.

Intensely involved in the activities of organized nursing, Notter was elected secretary and president of the New York State Nurses Association. She was a strong supporter of economic security and career mobility for nurses and recognized nursing as a potentially powerful political force for the improvement of health care.

Throughout a nursing career that has spanned 65 years, Luther Christman, PhD, RN, FAAN, has been a champion for improving professional nursing practice and elevating the educational level of the nursing profession. He established a premier school of nursing that pioneered the practitioner-teacher role and science-based academic models from the baccalaureate through the doctorate levels. As founder and dean of the Rush University College of Nursing, his name is often linked to the “Rush Model,” a unified approach to nursing education and practice that continues to set new standards of excellence in the United States and abroad.

Basic tenets of Christman’s nursing philosophy focus on providing the best clinical care for patients, developing an expanded practice role for nurses through advanced education and elevating the status and sphere of influence of professional nursing. Christman also was an early leader in the development of the role of the clinical nurse specialist. Through practice, research and publications he helped identify the value of the clinical nurse specialist in providing quality patient care.

A champion of diversity in nursing, Christman was the first male to be named dean of a nursing school in the United States. As dean of Vanderbilt University’s School of Nursing, he was the first to employ African-American women as faculty at Vanderbilt. Christman strongly supported the recruitment of more men into the nursing profession. He was the founder of the American Association for Men in Nursing, as well as a founder of the National Student Nurses Association.

A visionary leader in nursing, Christman has served as an innovator and consultant to nursing schools, health care agencies and professional organizations in nursing and medicine around the globe. He is a national treasure in nursing and health care.

An innovator in nursing practice, Lydia Eloise Hall established and directed the Loeb Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation at Montefiore Hospital in Bronx, New York, from 1963 to 1969.

Through her research in nursing and long term care, Hall developed a theory that the direct professional nurse-to-patient relationship is itself therapeutic and that nursing care is the chief therapy for the chronically ill patient. Montefiore Hospital invited her to implement her theories by establishing and becoming director of the Loeb Center. She published over 20 articles about the Loeb Center and her theories of long term care and chronic disease control. She held a bachelor of science degree in public health nursing and a master of arts degree from Teachers College. In 1967, she received the Teachers College Nursing Education Alumni Association Achievement in Nursing Practice Award.

A leader of vision, determination, and courage, Mabel Keaton Staupers helped break down color barriers in nursing at a time when segregation was entrenched in this country. Dedicated to improving the status of black nurses and promoting better health care for black Americans, she was instrumental in organizing the first private facility in Harlem, New York, where black physicians could treat their patients.

Staupers was born on February 27, 1890, in Barbados, West Indies. At age thirteen, she emigrated to the United States with her parents, Pauline and Thomas Doyle. In 1917, Staupers graduated with honors from Freedmen's Hospital School of Nursing in Washington, DC, and worked as a private duty nurse. From 1922 to 1934, she was employed first as a surveyor of health needs and later as executive secretary for the Harlem Tuberculosis Committee, a unit of the New York Tuberculosis and Health Association.

Early in her career, Staupers was confronted with the prejudice and dehumanizing discrimination affecting the lives of black Americans. In the profession of nursing, for example, training schools were largely segregated and major organizations, including the American Nurses Association and the National League of Nursing Education, denied membership to black nurses residing in selected states. Exposure to those conditions reinforced Staupers' resolve to initiate changes that would generate equal rights for black nurses, awaken the public to existing disparities, and gain improved access to equitable health care services for black citizens.

In 1934, Staupers accepted a position as the first paid executive secretary of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. During her twelve-year tenure, Staupers increased membership, established a citizens advisory committee, built coalitions with other nursing and non-nursing groups, and effectively tore down the racial barriers that previously kept black nurses out of the military. In 1946, Staupers resigned her position but continued her struggle. Following admission of black nurses to full membership in the American Nurses Association in 1948, the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses was dissolved in 1949.

Honored with numerous awards, citations, and certificates, Staupers was one of the great heroines in nursing's history. Her book, No Time for Prejudice, recounts the many obstacles she overcame in her fight for equal recognition. Through the sustained efforts of Mabel Keaton Staupers, black nurses were accepted into the educational, institutional, and organizational structure of American nursing.

Maggie Jacobs was a powerful leader in nursing. Although her remarkable life was cut tragically short at age 49, her influence will forever help to shape nursing and health care. Jacobs was a fierce and effective advocate for New York City's poor and for the development of its health care system.

She held positions of leadership for 21 years in the largest exclusively registered nurse bargaining unit in the United States - Health and Hospitals Corporation of the City of New York. In addition, she shared her dedication, expertise and leadership in numerous diverse community organizations, thus contributing to society while improving the public's understanding of nursing.

Jacobs received many honors and awards, including the Distinguished Service Award from the Nurses Association for the Counties of Long Island in New York, the Outstanding Community Service Award from the Harriet Tubman Political Club in Brooklyn, NY, and the Community Service Award from the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Clubs in Brooklyn, NY. She also received an award of Honorary Recognition from the New York State Nurses Association.

Margaret Baggett Dolan began a career in public health nursing in 1935, as a staff nurse. During the next 10 years she served as a epidemiological nurse and tuberculosis nursing consultant with the United States Public Health Service, and later became head of the Department of Public Health Nursing, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina.

As the 19th president of the American Nurses Association (ANA), she presented congressional testimony and served on a number of government advisory bodies. Equally active in the American Public Health Association, she served as its president and held membership on the governing council executive board. An international figure in health care, Dolan served as a consultant to the governments of Ghana and Thailand and represented ANA at congresses of the International Council of Nurses. She received the ANA Honorary Membership Award and the Pearl McIver Public Health Nurse Award. After her death, the American Public Health Association established a lectureship endowment fund in her honor.

Founder of the American birth control movement, Margaret H. Sanger fought for revision of archaic legislation which prohibited publication of facts about contraception. In her early career, Sanger practiced nursing among the impoverished families of New York's lower east side.

There she became aware of the interrelationships between overpopulation, high infant and maternal mortality rates, and poverty. In 1914, Sanger began publishing material about contraception. In Brooklyn, two years later, she opened the first American birth control clinic. She served 30 days in the workhouse in 1917 for "maintaining a public nuisance," but this and other legal difficulties only served to garner public sympathy for her work. Sanger founded the American Birth Control League, serving as president for seven years. In 1927, she organized the first World Population Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, and was the first president of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. 

"In her time, Margaret Sanger's pioneering work on birth control had profound influence over women's health and nursing care of the poor. Since her induction into ANA's Hall of Fame, some of the approaches she and her colleagues advocated to help the poor migrated into population control methods deemed to be contrary to society's changing norms and are not accepted today." (ANA 2015)

Margretta Madden Styles was a nurse scholar who was renowned nationally and globally as a leader in nursing education, credentialing and international nursing. As a past president of ANA, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), "Gretta" Styles demonstrated a lifelong commitment to leadership in nursing. Styles was dean and professor of the University of Texas School of Nursing, San Antonio, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, and the University of California, San Francisco. She authored of books and articles on socialization and professionalism.

As the architect of the first comprehensive study of nursing credentialing in the 1970s, Styles was an innovator and pioneer in framing and defining this critical work that recognizes and differentiates quality in all aspects of nursing practice. In the 1980s, she spearheaded ICN's definitive work on nursing regulation. A driving force behind the creation of the American Nurses Credentialing Center, her work laid the groundwork for expanding the services and programs in the United States and abroad.

The recipient of seven honorary doctorates from universities in the United States, Canada and Greece, and numerous other awards from academic and professional organizations, Styles had a global impact on the profession.

Widely known for her discovery of the science of unitary human beings, Martha E. Rogers provided a framework for continued study and research, and influenced the development of a variety of modalities, including therapeutic touch. Over a long and productive career, she demonstrated leadership skill and a futuristic vision that improved nursing education, practice, and research in the United States and internationally.

Born in Dallas, Texas, on May 12, 1914, Rogers was the eldest of four children of Bruce and Lucy M. Keener Rogers. After attending the University of Tennessee at Knoxville from 1931 to 1933, Rogers entered the Knoxville General Hospital School of Nursing, receiving her diploma in 1936, and earned a bachelor of science degree from George Peabody College, Nashville, in 1937. She was employed as a public health nurse in Michigan from 1937 to 1939, and as a member of the staff of the Hartford, Connecticut Visiting Nurses Association from 1940 to 1945.

After receiving a master of arts degree from Teachers College, Columbia University, in 1945, she accepted the position of executive director of the Phoenix Visiting Nurse Association in Arizona, where she remained for six years. In 1952, she received a master's degree in public health and in 1954, a doctor of science degree, both from Johns Hopkins University. In 1954, Rogers was appointed professor of nursing and head of the Division of Nursing at New York University. Committed to baccalaureate education for nurses, Rogers opposed continued use of curricula based on a medical model and recommended that nursing faculty be prepared at the doctoral level.

Over the next twenty-one years, Rogers initiated curriculum revisions, theory based learning, and the establishment of a five-year bachelor of science degree program at New York University. During the same period, she developed the theory she identified as "a paradigm for nursing -- the science of unitary human beings," and conducted "philosophical and theoretical investigations of the nature and direction of unitary human development."

A proponent of rigorous scientific study, Rogers wrote three books that enriched the learning experience and influenced the direction of nursing research for countless students: Educational Revolution in Nursing (1961), Reveille in Nursing (1964), and An Introduction to the Theoretical Basis of Nursing (1970), the last of which introduced the four Rogerian Principles of Homeodynamics. Following her retirement in 1975, Rogers continued to teach at New York University, was a frequent presenter at scientific conferences throughout the world, and consistently worked to refine her conceptual system. Rogers was also actively involved in professional nursing organizations and associations concerned with education and scholarship. She was honored with numerous awards and citations for her sustained contributions to nursing and science.

One of the first to actively campaign for racial equality in nursing, Martha Minerva Franklin was the catalyst for collective action by black nurses in the early 1900s. The only black graduate of her class at Woman's Hospital Training School for Nurses in Philadelphia, Franklin recognized black nurses needed help to improve their professional status, and they would have to initiate it themselves.

Under Martha Franklin's guidance, 52 nurses assembled to form the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN) in 1908 and Franklin was elected president. During the three-day meeting, the goals determined by the infant organization were to promote the standards and welfare of all trained nurses and to break down racial discrimination in the profession. A year later, NACGN stated black nurses must meet required standards for all nurses so that a double standard based on race could not be practiced. By 1951, many of the group's aspirations had been met and NACGN merged with the American Nurses Association.

Honored for her outstanding contributions to nursing and nursing education, Mary Adelaide Nutting was a noted educator, historian, and scholar. She was a strong advocate of university education for nurses and was instrumental in developing the first programs of this type.

When Nutting accepted the chairmanship of the newly developing Department of Nursing Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, she became the first nurse ever to be appointed to a university professorship. Earlier in her career, in 1894, Nutting became principal of the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, where she had graduated from in 1891. During her lifetime, Nutting made significant contributions to nursing literature. She wrote A Sound Economic Basis for Nursing, co-authored with Lavinia Dock the first two volumes of the four-volume History of Nursing, and wrote many articles for nursing and health periodicals.

Sister Mary Berenice Beck received the first doctorate in nursing education awarded by The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., and is one of the first ten U.S. nurses to earn a doctorate. This distinction also made her the first doctorally prepared nurse in a religious order. Through her leadership at the American Nurses Association (ANA), the first code of ethics for the profession was adopted. While working with Marquette University, Beck completed the merger of the training school with the university and enrolled the first collegiate nursing students. After serving as dean of the Marquette University College of Nursing, Beck was professor and department chairman for ten years of the Department of Nursing Education of the Marquette Graduate School.

She was a member of the Committee on Nursing Education of the Catholic Hospital Association, Association of Collegiate Schools of Nursing, and National League of Nursing Education. She was president of the Wisconsin League of Nursing Education, vice president of ANA's Professional Counseling and Placement Service, and board members of the Wisconsin Nurses Association, American Journal of Nursing Company, and ANA.

Mary Breckinridge introduced a model rural health care system into the United States in 1925. To provide professional services to neglected people of a thousand square mile area in southeastern Kentucky, she created a decentralized system of nurse-midwives, district nursing centers, and hospital facilities. Originally called the Kentucky Committee for Mothers and Babies, later the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS), the system lowered the rate of death in childbirth in Leslie County, Kentucky, from the highest in the nation to substantially below the national average. Thanks to FNS, nurse-midwives were no more than six miles away from any patients. Providing both preventive and curative nursing, FNS continues to serve this region. Staff members of the FNS formed the beginnings of the American College of Nurse-Midwives in 1929. The first school of midwifery was started at the Maternity Center in New York in 1932 by a FNS-certified nurse-midwife member. The FNS began its own school in 1939.

Born in Ohio on April 27, 1875, Mary D. Osborne graduated from the Akron City Hospital School of Nursing in 1902. Her early interest in the field of maternity nursing brought her to New York City, where in 1912, she became supervisor of nurses for a voluntary agency concerned with improving conditions for the poor.

Her simultaneous involvement with the American Red Cross of New York provided the impetus for her relocation to Mississippi in 1921 and her acceptance of a position as supervisor of the Division of Maternal and Child Health for the Mississippi State Board of Health. Soon after, Osborne was named supervisor of public health nurses for the same agency.

At that time, midwives delivered approximately 80% of the black babies born in Mississippi. Called "granny" midwives, most of the women were black, had little education, and played central roles in the provision of perinatal care in rural black communities. Critical of the midwives' lack of formal preparation, state officials enacted regulatory mechanisms through which standards were established and maintained. Under the direction of Osborne, a collaborative network of public health nurses and "granny" midwives was begun in which the nurses implemented training programs for the midwives, and the midwives in turn assisted the nurses in the delivery of improved maternal/infant services. In 1922, Osborne authored Manual for Midwives which contained guidelines for the appropriate provision of care, and which continued to be revised as recently as the 1970s.

During the 1930s, more than one hundred public health nurses were employed by the Mississippi Board of Health. In addition to teaching midwives, the nurses reinforced cleanliness, the need to prevent infection, and compliance with state regulations. Through Osborne's model partnership, "granny" midwives gained wider recognition and were empowered to provide health teaching in local areas, help control venereal disease, and disseminate information regarding the importance of pre- and post-natal care. Osborne's strategies have been credited with markedly reducing maternal and infant mortality rates in Mississippi, as well as in other states where her innovative ideas were adopted. In June 1946, Osborne resigned her position and died on July 7 of the same year.

Mary D. Osborne's devotion to the care of mothers and babies, and her profound regard for the needs of poor, predominantly black, rural communities, saved many lives in Mississippi. The healing alliance she created endured for more than fifty years and provided a vital link between the people and access to public health services.

Mary E.P. Davis served as a business manager of The American Journal of Nursing from 1900-1909. In 1900, with 550 stock subscriptions sold, she and her colleagues published the first issue of the Journal.

When the post office in Philadelphia refused to accept this issue for mailing, Davis made herself and her editor personally responsible for the magazine to the postal authorities.

Davis was among the founders of the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses, later renamed National League for Nursing. A supporter of a rigorous education for nurses, with its own theory and curriculum, Davis observed, "The hospital is the place par excellence to teach the art of nursing and to practice the science, but it is not the best place, or even a good place, to teach the concomitants...The school is...for the purpose of acquiring theoretical knowledge of the practical work required, so that the work from the beginning of the probation shall be intelligently, not mechanically, performed."

America's first black professional nurse, Mary Eliza Mahoney is known not only for her outstanding personal career, but also for her exemplary contributions to local and national professional organizations. Mahoney inspired both nurses and patients with her calm, quiet efficiency and untiring compassion.

Patients tended by Mahoney throughout her career gave glowing testimony of her expert and tender care. She graduated from the New England Hospital for Women and Children Training School for Nurses in 1879. She was one of only three persons in her class to complete the rigorous 16 month program. In 1909, Mahoney gave the welcome address at the first conference of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN). In recognition of her outstanding example to nurses of all races, NACGN established the Mary Mahoney Award in 1936. When NACGN merged with the American Nurses Association in 1951, the award was continued. Today, the Mary Mahoney Award is bestowed biennially in recognition of significant contributions in interracial relationships.

Mary Elizabeth Carnegie exhibited courage, integrity and commitment to the advancement of the nursing profession, as well as to the advancement of black and other minority nurses.

Carnegie was employed at the American Journal of Nursing Company from 1953 until 1978 and was editor emeritus of Nursing Research until her death. She wrote, edited and contributed chapters to nearly 20 books and is author of all three editions of the award-winning The Path We Tread: Blacks in Nursing Worldwide, 1854-1994. She initiated the baccalaureate nursing program at the historically black Hampton University in Virginia, where the archives are named in her honor. A past president of the American Academy of Nursing (1978-1979) and chair of the ANA's Minority Fellowship Program Advisory Committee (1988-1999), she served as dean and professor of the school of nursing at Florida A&M University (1945-1953).

After retiring in 1978, Carnegie served as an independent consultant for Scientific Writing and as distinguished visiting professor for the Schools of Nursing at Hampton University, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Pennsylvania State University in University Park.

Carnegie received eight honorary doctorates and countless awards, including the George Arens Pioneer Medal from her alma mater, Syracuse University, the President's Award from Sigma Theta Tau International, and the Living Legend Award from the Association of Black Nurse Faculty in Higher Education.

Mary Ellen Patton has distinguished herself for a generation of commitment to the profession and is well recognized for her contribution to the economic and general welfare movement. She has been a committed and outspoken advocate for improving the working conditions of all registered nurses regardless of setting.

In the 1960s, she co-led a 13-day mass resignation action. She believed registered nurses in the state of Ohio were undervalued and was determined to change the wages and benefits for all registered nurses making less than $2.00 per hour. Mrs. Patton’s efforts spearheaded the economic and general welfare program in Ohio and led to the Ohio Nurses Association’s (ONA) first bargaining unit.

Mrs. Patton has exemplified the qualities of a staff nurse leader for more than 20 years as a local, district, state and national officer. She served on the ANA Board of Directors for eight years while also serving as ONA’s treasurer for four of those years. Patton has continually served the local unit and district in many capacities. Mrs. Patton has shown staff nurses that it is not only important to be involved but it is also possible to do so as a busy staff nurse.

She championed the staff nurses’ role in determining their own work environment and not relying on others to tell nurses what was best for the care they needed to deliver.

She has been an inspirational role model and mentor to nurses across the United States. As an often-requested speaker, Patton was a founding member of the Institute of Constituent Member Collective Bargaining Programs and the ANA Staff Nurse Caucus.

Mrs. Patton has won a host of awards throughout her career. In 1995, ANA established the Mary Ellen Patton Staff Nurse Leadership Award in her honor, and she was its first recipient. Among other honors, she has received ANA’s Shirley Titus Award, the Ohio Nurses Association Diamond Jubilee Nurse Award, the YMCA Woman of the Year award and the Youngstown Recognition of Leadership award. Patton’s dedication and commitment to nursing continue to serve as an inspiration to all.

Mary Lewis Wyche graduated from the diploma program at Philadelphia General Hospital in 1894 at the age of 36. It clearly was only the start of an amazing nursing career in which she focused her energies on improving professional nursing in her home state of North Carolina -- despite the cultural constraints of her time. 

In education, Wyche foresaw the need to standardize nursing school educational requirements. She established three schools, one of which is still known today for the quality of its nursing program. In a time when women couldn't vote, she mobilized support for the regulation of nursing practice in the North Carolina legislature, resulting in the first practice act in the U.S. in 1903. She was appointed to the North Carolina Board of Nurse Examiners, and served as secretary-treasurer from 1903-1908.

She was a firm believer in professional nursing associations. In 1901, she mailed invitations to nurses she knew asking them to discuss forming a nursing organization. When no one came to the meeting, she sent out a second mailing describing the excitement generated at the event and extended another invitation to meet. The group of nurses who agreed to meet formed the North Carolina State Nurses in 1902, and Wyche served as its president for five years.

Mary May Roberts served as editor of The American Journal of Nursing from 1921-1949. When she became co-editor in 1921 with Katherine DeWitt, she had 22 years of nursing experience, a baccalaureate degree, and a certificate in Administration of Nursing Schools from Teachers College, Columbia University. In 1923, she became sole editor, a post she would hold for more than a quarter century. During her editorship, the circulation increased from 20,000 to more than 100,000.

In 1934, concerned about the need for a sound public relations program for the profession, she launched the "Nursing Information Bureau," almost wholly financed and administered by the Journal company. In 1949, she retired, becoming editor emeritus. During retirement, she authored books on nursing in America, including The Army Nurse Corps--Yesterday and Today, and maintained her keen and sensitive interest in nursing and the Journal. She died in 1959 while at work on an editorial in the Journal offices.

Renowned expert in the care of older adults and the nursing management of long term care, Mary Opal Wolanin influenced the inclusion of gerontological content in nursing curricula. Committed to ongoing research in the field of gerontology, she funds an annual research award and mentors American and foreign graduate students.

Mary Opal Browne was born in Chrisney, Indiana, on November 1, 1910, to Earl Edwin and Florence (Abbott) Browne, she spent the first year of her life in Saskatchewan, Canada, where she developed diphtheria, which eventually left her completely deaf in one ear. In 1931, she received a diploma in nursing from the Kansas City General Hospital School of Nursing in Missouri and completed a course in psychiatric nursing at Cook County Hospital, Illinois. From 1941 to 1943, she served as second lieutenant in the Army Nurse Corps in World War II, and while in the service was married to second lieutenant, H.J. Tiger Wolanin. Between 1944 and 1951, Wolanin held positions in Mississippi, Louisiana, Ohio, Arizona, and Nebraska, which included experiences in obstetrical nursing and the care of native Americans with tuberculosis. After completing a bachelor of arts degree at the University of Arizona in 1954, Wolanin again accompanied her husband on his various military assignments. Returning to Arizona in 1958, the Wolanins settled in Tucson where they remained for the next twenty-nine years. In the early 1960s, Wolanin joined the faculty of the University of Arizona School of Nursing where she also completed a master's degree in 1963.

In 1968, Wolanin was given a joint appointment with the newly established Regional Medical Program and began her study of nursing homes and long term care needs in Arizona. Through her sustained efforts, a graduate program in gerontological nursing, one of the first of its kind in this country, was established at the University of Arizona.

A valuable resource for educational programs in nursing as well as nursing home administration, Wolanin provided thirty consultations on gerontological nursing and presented more than twenty-five scholarly papers in the U.S. and abroad. Author of numerous published articles, books, and book chapters, she is the recipient of a great many honors and awards, including the Lifetime Achievement in Nursing Award from the National Gerontological Nursing Association, and fellowship in the Gerontological Society of America. Retired in 1987 as associate professor emeritus, she now resides with her husband of 53 years in San Antonio, Texas. Active in nursing for more that sixty years, Wolanin continues to affect the lives of the aged and, according to colleagues, "remains a guiding light in gerontological nursing."

Upon graduation from the Newport Hospital Training School for Nurses, Rhode Island, Mary Sewall Gardner became superintendent and later director of the Providence District Nursing Association. During her 26-year leadership, the association became one of the most progressive public health agencies in the nation.

Gardner remained with the association until her retirement in 1931, although she took several leaves of absence to engage in professional activities in the U.S. and abroad. Gardner urged the establishment of the National Organization for Public Health Nursing, where she later served as president. In 1918, she accepted the wartime position of chief nurse of the American Red Cross Tuberculosis Commission for Italy to direct Red Cross efforts during the war. She is perhaps best known for her book, Public Health Nursing, the first American text on the subject. In recognition of her pioneering efforts in public health nursing, she received an honorary master's degree from Brown University, Rhode Island. She also received the Walter Burns Saunders Medal for distinguished service to nursing.

Dr. Muriel Poulin has achieved an extraordinary career in nursing, spanning more than 50 years in over a dozen countries.

Throughout her career, she has served on numerous boards of directors, published research articles including the original Magnet Hospital study (which she co-authored) under the auspices of the American Academy of Nursing, and taught as a visiting professor in other countries. She successfully established the first master’s program in nursing in Spain after serving as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Barcelona. Furthermore, her outstanding leadership and commitment to nursing have earned her several awards for excellence in research and teaching.

Dr. Poulin moved to Washington, DC, in 1946, where she worked at Gallinger Municipal Hospital (later renamed District of Columbia General Hospital in 1953) as a staff nurse, head nurse and clinical supervisor. In 1953, she was recruited to be a member of a task force responsible for opening and managing the newly constructed Damascus General Hospital in Syria, and served as its director of nursing. This opportunity led her to understand that high quality patient care is achieved when nursing services are led by well-prepared nursing administrators, and it also began her commitment to international health care.

Dr. Poulin returned to the U.S. in 1955, where she worked at Massachusetts General Hospital as the coordinator of staff development. Two years later, she was recruited by the U.S. Agency for International Development to work at the San Juan de Dios Hospital in San José, Costa Rica, as the assistant hospital administrator for nursing. She returned to the U.S. in 1958, went on to earn her master’s degree in nursing administration from the University of Colorado, spent a year traveling the world and then joined the faculty of the University of Kentucky in 1962 as an assistant professor.

After earning her doctorate in education and nursing administration at Columbia University’s Teachers College, Dr. Poulin returned to Massachusetts, where she was the chair of the graduate program in nursing administration for 17 years at Boston University until she retired in 1989. Dr. Poulin has strengthened the profession of nursing nationally and internationally, and she has been an inspirational role model to nurses everywhere.

Nettie Birnbach began her career as a graduate of the Kings County School of Nursing, Brooklyn, New York, which led to her service in the United States Cadet Nurse Corps. Her curriculum vitae reflects her many contributions as a practitioner, educator, researcher and extraordinary volunteer with a great vision for nursing. Described as setting the ultimate standard of service, Dr. Birnbach served in many appointed and elected positions including president of the New York State Nurses Association and District 14.

Her exceptional commitment to nursing history is demonstrated by her involvement in the American Association for the History of Nursing, serving in many leadership positions, including president. Dr. Birnbach has generated a body of historical research that illuminates the profession’s evolution and development. One of her most significant and lasting undertakings is her doctoral research at Columbia University’s Teachers College on, “The Genesis of the Nurse Registration Movement in the United States, 1893-1903.” Completed in 1982, the study concludes that “despite the immediate beneficial effects
of registration, the major goal of achieving uniformity in educational preparation for professional nursing practice remains unresolved."

Dr. Birnbach, described as a renaissance woman by those who nominated her, has extended the profession’s boundaries and truly enhanced its services to society. Her many enduring accomplishments make her most worthy of induction into the ANA Hall of Fame.

Dr. Patricia Messmer has led a remarkable career in nursing, and has been an active and committed ANA member for more than 54 years. Her dedication and knowledge of the nursing profession include her work as a long-term advocate for excellence at the bedside.

Dr. Messmer is currently a consultant for nursing research and education in the Benjamín León School of Nursing at Miami Dade College. She serves as chair of the Nurses Charitable Trust, which supports nursing scholarships and research. Since her early days as a staff nurse at Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA, she has continued to build on her career, taking on roles that have included clinical instructor, nurse practitioner, assistant professor, director of nursing education and research, director of nursing research, and Magnet project director at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, FL.

Dr. Messmer also has made her mark in health care by publishing numerous articles that include “Teaching infant CPR to mothers of cocaine- exposed infants,” “Kangaroo care for neonates,” “CPR steps to Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” and “Enhancing nurse-physician collaboration using simulation,” as well as collaborating with Ethiopian surgeons to co-author “Treatment of sigmoid volvulus by deflation versus surgery.” Dr. Messmer received the 2010 ANA Jessie M. Scott Award and in 2000 became the only nurse to receive the Smithsonian Computerworld Medal for “Companion Phone Technology in the Emergency Department.” Dr. Messmer, a Sigma Theta Tau International Virginia Henderson Fellow, is a consummate advocate who ensures that nurses’ voices are heard, and a dedicated champion who has strengthened the nursing profession regionally, nationally and internationally. She co-authored “Private Duty Nurse Undine Sams: Passion, Power & Political Action” and donated Sams’ archival material to Florida International University and the University of Miami, and donated Imogene King’s archives to Loyola University in Chicago and the University of Virginia. At the same time, Dr. Messmer led an initiative to fund a Veterans Affairs nurse collection for the Kansas Nurses Foundation. A former American Nurses Foundation trustee and treasurer and ANA-PAC trustee and secretary, she co-chairs the ANA-PAC Leadership Society and is president of the Florida Nurses Foundation. She serves as an advisor to the Philippine Nurses Association in Cebu, Philippines, the Miami chapter of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses, and the Haitian American Nurses Association.

Her innovative, highly relevant and international research is consistently funded. She is a globally respected mentor to nurses and physicians, helping them to achieve workable solutions in clinical practice.

The late Pearl McIver created an enduring legacy in the field of public health nursing, a journey that began when she took a position with the United States Public Health Service in 1922.

There, she served 35 years in several divisions, from the Maternal and Child Health Division to the Office of Public Health Nursing, before becoming the chief nurse in the United States Public Health Service Bureau of State Services. In this role, Ms. McIver built the foundation of public health nursing and remained active in preventing disease and promoting health and wellness.

Her dedication and knowledge of the nursing profession established nursing programs across state and local levels, which effectively employed more than 3,500 nurses during the Great Depression. Her ability to lead people to solutions and build partnerships helped strengthen the nursing profession.

Ms. McIver’s most noted leadership role in nursing was as chair of the Joint Coordinating Committee, where she paved the way for the unification of five nursing organizations into two, the American Nurses Association (ANA) and the National League for Nursing.

Additionally, Ms. McIver served in leadership roles with ANA for nearly 20 years, including president of ANA from 1948 to 1950. She was a former president and editor of the American Journal of Nursing and vice president of the American Public Health Association, where she led the establishment of the Nursing Section. Additionally, McIver served as chair of the Federal Nursing Council, a member of the World Health Organization’s Expert Panel on Nursing, chair of the International Council of Nurses Constitution Committee and vice-chair of the American Nurses Foundation.

To recognize and honor Pearl McIver’s remarkable accomplishments, the first Public Health Nurse Award was bestowed upon her by ANA’s Public Health Nurses Section in 1956. This award, later renamed in her honor, recognizes the outstanding professional contribution of one public health nurse.

Ms. McIver died in 1976 at age 83; however, her immense contributions still impact the Public Health Service and the nursing profession.

Honored as a “living legend” by the American Academy of Nursing in 1994, Rear Admiral Faye G. Abdellah dedicated her life’s work to the advancement of the nursing profession. She is regarded as one of the most influential nursing theorists and public health scientists of our times.
Abdellah graduated from Fitkin Memorial Hospital in 1942. A highly respected nurse leader, she holds 12 honorary degrees from universities recognizing her pioneering work in nursing research and education, development of the first nurse scientist program, and expertise in international health policy. Her seminal works, Better Nursing Care Through Nursing Research and Patient Centered Approaches To Nursing, forever changed the focus of nursing theory from disease-centered to patient-centered.
As the first nurse and woman to serve as Deputy Surgeon General of the United States, Abdellah worked tirelessly to protect the elderly by influencing policy on nursing home standards. She educated the public on issues such as AIDS, drug addiction, violence, smoking, and alcoholism. After retiring from the USPHS in 1989, Abdellah went on to found and serve as the first dean of the Graduate School of Nursing at the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, MD. In 2002, she retired with more than 50 years of government service.
Her contributions to nursing and public health have been recognized with almost 90 professional and academic honors, such as the Allied Signal Achievement Award for pioneering research in aging and Sigma Theta Tau’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2000, Abdellah was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
Abdellah’s leadership, her publications, and her lifelong contributions have set a new standard for nursing and for health care. Her legacy of more than 60 years of extraordinary accomplishments lives on nationally and globally.

Robert V. Piemonte has had a distinguished and extraordinarily diverse nursing career; his commitment to the advancement of nursing has led to the transformation and implementation of the highest standards in the nursing profession.

In 2008, Dr. Piemonte was recognized as a “living legend” by the American Academy of Nursing and has dedicated his life’s work to ensuring that the nursing profession has a strong foundation for future nurses.

Dr. Piemonte promoted the development of nursing students, as executive director of the National Student Nurses’ Association (NSNA) from 1985 to 1996. He was the first man with a doctorate in nursing to lead the organization. During his term, membership in NSNA doubled from 20,000 to 40,000.

Dr. Piemonte also served as executive director of the New Jersey State Nurses Association from 1978 to 1980 and has held leadership positions with the American Nurses Association (ANA).

He has held several leadership positions in nursing service administration, including with the New York City Health and Hospital Corporation. While serving in these, Dr. Piemonte was also an educator for several colleges’ and universities’ nursing programs. He strived to enhance nursing education and was a strong advocate for developing curricula that would take nursing to the next level.

Throughout his career, Dr. Piemonte has received numerous honorary and prestigious awards, including ANA’s Honorary Recognition and Luther Christman Awards and the R. Louise McManus Medal from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Additionally, he has been recognized for his contributions to nursing by New York University and Villanova University and has received alumni achievement awards from Columbia University and Long Island University.

Dr. Piemonte currently serves in various roles, including as a member of the New York University College of Nursing Advisory Board, chair of the American Academy of Nursing Development Committee and chair of the Individual Gifts Committee of the National League for Nursing.

His commitment to the nursing profession will continue to enrich nursing scholarship and literature across the nation.

Dr. Piemonte’s distinguished and diverse career has spanned more than five decades and has advanced nursing education and the profession.

Ruth Benson Freeman's major contributions to nursing were as an educator, author, and speaker in the field of public health nursing. After receiving her doctorate, she became a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in 1962, retiring from that position in 1971.

Freeman was president and member of the board of directors of the National Health Council and the National League for Nursing. She served on the governing council and executive board of the American Public Health Association, as chairperson of the American Nurses Association (ANA) Committee on Functions, Standards, and Qualifications of Public Health Nurses, and as a member of the executive committee of the ANA Division on Community Health Nursing Practice. She received the ANA Pearl McIver Public Health Nurse Award, Florence Nightingale Medal from the International Red Cross, Mary Adelaide Nutting Award from the National League for Nursing, and Bronfman Prize from the American Public Health Association. She was named an honorary fellow of the American Academy of Nursing in 1981.

Sadie Health Cabaniss was a pioneer nurse in the truest sense. The Virginia nurse developed the first training school for nurses in her state that followed the Nightingale plan, and that school exists to this day as the School of Nursing at Virginia Commonwealth University.

She also convinced existing training schools in Virginia to form alumni associations, and then she called on representatives from these groups to come together in 1901 to create what now is known as the Virginia Nurses Association. As president of her state organization, she helped draft a measure that would regulate the practice of nursing in the Commonwealth. Once the bill was enacted in 1903, she was one of the original members of the Virginia State Board of Examiners of Nurses, and served as its president throughout her two terms.

In addition to her advocacy for the profession, she was a public health advocate. She founded the Nurses Settlement of Richmond, VA, where nurses provided care to patients in their homes. She also helped develop dispensaries for patients with tuberculosis who could not be admitted to local hospitals. And, she established the first rural visiting nurses service in Virginia and brought her public health skills and knowledge to other states, as well.

A leader in the care of the mentally ill, Sara Elizabeth Parsons steadfastly worked for the advancement of psychiatric nursing throughout her career and established nurse training schools in hospitals and asylums during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She advocated autonomy for nurses and took part in professional activities at state and national levels.

Parsons was born in Northboro, Massachusetts, on April 24, 1864, and received her early education in the town of Oxford, Massachusetts. In 1884, she entered the Boston City Hospital Training School for Nurses, but returned home shortly thereafter to care for her dying mother. She remained at home for the following seven years to look after her two young siblings and entered the Boston Training School at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1891. Following graduation in 1893, Parsons held various positions in nursing, including head nurse, supervisor, and superintendent, and established a nurse training school in Rhode Island in 1896. During the Spanish-American War, Parsons volunteered for service on the "Bay State," a hospital ship used to evacuate sick and wounded military personnel from Cuba and Puerto Rico. After an eight-month trip abroad to recover from typhoid fever, she was employed as superintendent of nurses at Adams Nervine Hospital in Massachusetts, a position she held for three years. At this time, Parsons completed a one-year certificate course in hospital economics at Teachers College, Columbia University, and a six-month course in hospital administration at Massachusetts General Hospital. From 1910 to 1920, she occupied the position of superintendent of Massachusetts General, but took a two-year leave in 1917 to serve as chief nurse of Base Hospital #6 in France.

Parsons initiated considerable change for the student nurses at Massachusetts General Hospital. She implemented a probationary period, higher admission requirements, and a school library. Living conditions were improved and provisions were made for extra-curricular activities. A publication for the alumnae association was begun and plans for an endowment fund for the nursing school were introduced. Parsons served as president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association during this period and was a staunch supporter of the association's legislative goals with respect to licensure and registration for nurses.

A prolific writer, Parsons produced many articles for nursing journals. Her book, Nursing Problems and Obligations, was published in 1916. Her best known work, the History of the Massachusetts General Hospital Training School for Nurses, was published in 1922, and remains a valuable resource for historians. Actively involved in the struggle for full military rank for army nurses, Parsons presented her position in hearings conducted by the United States Senate. She retired in 1926, traveled extensively, and died on October 25, 1949. Sara E. Parsons is remembered as a vigorous opponent of the exploitation of student nurses and as a crusader for improvement in the care of mental illness.

Working through the state nurses associations and the American Nurses Association (ANA), Shirley Carew Titus championed nursing's responsibility to improve the economic security through collective bargaining, insurance plans, recommendations on salaries, benefits, and job responsibilities, consultation to private duty registries, and extending ANA's Professional Counseling and Placement Service into state and district offices. Her 1943 article, Economic Security Is Not Too Much to Ask, asserted that as employed professionals, nurses need the protection of, and the legal right to, collective bargaining. Organized nursing began to show recognition of Titus' commitment through a resolution of appreciation adopted at the 1946 ANA convention. Delegates had unanimously adopted the program for economic security endorsing the state nurses associations as bargaining representatives. "Miss T" was carried from the hall on the shoulders of delegates. In 1976, ANA established the Shirley Titus Award in her honor, to recognize the contributions individual nurses have made to ANA's economic and general welfare program.

Signe Skott Cooper is a name synonymous with continuing nursing education. Through her pioneering efforts and lifelong contributions, she has been an inspiration for the nursing profession. Her contributions have helped to sustain and develop creative methodologies for both traditional and distance learning in continuing nursing education.

After becoming a nurse in 1943, Cooper joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and was stationed in the China-Burma-India theater. Upon her return she started a lifelong dedication to nursing as an educator, editor, consultant, historian, author, administrator, researcher, mentor and pioneering leader in continuing education. One of her more notable accomplishments was the pioneer development of extensive telephone conferencing courses in 1966. The initial course was offered through a series of telephone bridges to 24 listening posts throughout Wisconsin with more than 600 nurses enrolled. She has written five books, has been an editor or on editorial boards for seven nursing magazines, and has served as a consultant to such publishing firms as McGraw Hill and Springer Publishing Company.

Cooper has received numerous awards and honors, including the Image of Nursing Award from the Wisconsin Nurses Association, the Wisconsin Governor's Special Award and the Medallion of Services from the Wisconsin Heart Association.

Credited with the successful launching of the American Journal of Nursing, in 1900, Sophia French Palmer was the publication's first editor and served as editor-in-chief of the Journal for 20 years. During that time, her forceful editorials helped guide nursing thought and shape nursing practice and events.

Throughout her career, Palmer remained confident of the importance of the Journal and she persevered in difficult times when others grew discouraged. She was devoted to the development of the nursing profession, but always remembered the individual nurse. She was one of the first to campaign for state registration and helped formulate much of the nursing registration legislation. Because of her leadership abilities and her early advocacy of state registration, Palmer was named first president of the New York State Board of Examiners. She also assisted in organizing the American Nurses Association and the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses.

One of nursing's most energetic leaders, Stella Goostray earned a distinguished reputation as a scholar, author, and teacher. She graduated from Children's Hospital of Boston in 1919 and later earned a B.S. in nursing from Teacher's College, Columbia University and an M.E. from Boston University.

During her outstanding career, Goostray served 13 years on the board of directors of the American Journal of Nursing Company, seven as president. She was secretary of the National League for Nursing Education for 11 years and also served as advisor to the Joint Nursing Committee on Educational Policies and as nurse consultant to the Committee on the Grading of Nursing Schools. From 1940-1946, she was president of the National Nursing Council for War Service, Inc. Goostray's publications include Drugs and Solutions for Nurses, Mathematics and Measurements in Nursing Practice, Applied Chemistry for Nurses, Fifty Years: A History of the School of Nursing, the Children's Hospital, Boston, and Memoirs: Half a Century in Nursing.

While working with the then Indian Health Service from 1929 to1931, Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail helped to bring modern health care to her own people and to end abuses in the Indian health care system, such as the sterilization of Native American women without their consent. She effectively communicated Native American culture and perspectives to non-Indians throughout the country then as well as throughout her public service career.

From 1930 to 1960, the Montana nurse traveled throughout North American reservations to assess the health, social and educational problems Native Americans faced. One of her assessment's revealed that acutely ill Native American children were literally dying on the backs of their mothers, who often had to walk 20 to 30 miles to get to one of the five hospitals that served 160,000 Navajo. She also provided midwifery services to Native American and other women in the Little Horn Valley for 30 years.

Through her work with the then Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the founder of the Native American Nurses Association was instrumental in winning tribal and government funding to help Native Americans enter the nursing profession. In 1962, Yellowtail received the President's Award for Outstanding Nursing Health Care.

A member of the Florida Nurses Association (FNA), Undine Sams, doctora honoris causa, or "Sammy," spearheaded sweeping changes that advanced the nursing profession. In the 1940s, when segregation laws were in full force, FNA, with Sams' leadership, was one of the first southern state nurses associations to permit black nurses to join.

Mary Elizabeth Carnegie, also a member of the ANA Hall of Fame,  was one of the first black members of FNA. In the early 1950s, Sams implemented the recommendations for the FNA's Economic Security Program, and helped create the Nurses Charitable Trust of FNA District 5 (Miami-Dade County). Sams also played a key role in the "Nursing on the Move" campaign, which raised $2 million to support the 1992 relocation of ANA's headquarters from Kansas City, MO, to Washington, DC, to better position the association to influence national health care policy.

In 1998, Sams' 58th year as an FNA member, ANA honored Sams with a special recognition award for her lifelong contributions. She received her diploma in nursing from Jackson Memorial Hospital, a BSN in nursing at Barry University and an honorary doctorate in public service from Florida International University. Sams also was inducted into the Sigma Theta Tau International, Beta Tau Chapter at the University of Miami, and the FNA has named an award in her honor. In addition, Sams was one of the founders of the Florida Nurses Foundation in which three funds have been established in her honor -- a scholarship, a research grant and a "nurses in need" fund.

During a career that spanned more than 45 years, Veronica M. Driscoll proved her commitment to advancing the profession time and time again.

In her role as assistant executive director of the New York State Nurses Association's (NYSNA's) economic security program, she helped registered nurses employed in New York City municipal hospitals win increased wages, benefits and improved practice environments. Her leadership in this campaign prevented nurses from resigning en masse.

Later as NYSNA's executive director, from 1969 to 1979, Driscoll was instrumental in doubling membership, streamlining operations and establishing NYSNA as the largest collective bargaining agent for RNs in the country. She was key to ensuring the enactment of the groundbreaking 1972 New York State Nurse Practice Act. Driscoll later served as the first executive director of the Foundation of the NYSNA

In other efforts, she staffed the committee that prepared A Blueprint for the Education of Nurses in New York State, which promoted strengthening nursing's educational base through higher education. On the national scene, she served on important ANA bodies, including the ANA Commission on Economic and General Welfare, on which she served as chairperson.

A modern legend in nursing, Virginia A. Henderson has earned the title "foremost nurse of the 20th century." Her contributions are compared to those of Florence Nightingale because of their far-reaching effects on the national and international nursing communities.

She holds twelve honorary doctoral degrees and has received the International Council of Nursing's Christianne Reimann Prize, which is considered nursing's most prestigious award. An inspiration to nurses everywhere, she has influenced nursing practice, education, and research throughout the world.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, on November 30, 1897, Henderson was the fifth of eight children of Lucy Abbot Henderson and Daniel B. Henderson and a descendant of a long line of scholars and educators. In 1901, the family relocated to Virginia where Henderson grew to adulthood. In 1918, she entered the Army School of Nursing in Washington, DC, and received her diploma in 1921.

Henderson's commitment to teaching was evident as early as 1924, when she accepted her first position as an instructor. In 1934, she joined the nursing faculty at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she had earned bachelor of science and master of arts degrees in nursing education, and where she would remain for the next fourteen years. During that period, she revised Bertha Harmer's Textbook of the Principles and Practice of Nursing, which was published in 1939 and has been widely adopted by schools of nursing.

In 1953, Henderson accepted a position at Yale University School of Nursing as research associate for a funded project designed to survey and assess the status of nursing research in the United States. Following completion of the survey, Henderson was funded to direct the Nursing Studies Index Project from 1959 to 1971. The outcome of this project was publication of the four-volume Nursing Studies Index, the first annotated index of nursing research. Henderson was subsequently named research associate emeritus at Yale University, and at age 75, began a new phase of her career focusing on international teaching and speaking engagements. In 1979, the Connecticut Nurses Association established the Virginia Henderson Award for outstanding contributions to nursing research. Henderson was the first to receive this honor.

For more than seventy years, Henderson has been a visible force for nursing across numerous geographic boundaries. A recipient of many awards, the Sigma Theta Tau International Library is named in Henderson's honor. Over time, she has advocated humane and holistic care for patients, raised important issues in health care, authored one of the most accurate definitions of nursing, promoted nursing research as the basis for nursing knowledge, and above all, represented nursing with dignity, honor, and grace.