Timeline for the History of Nursing – 1700’s to present day
Nursing Students at The Ohio State University
1732 – Philadelphia opens and almshouse, which later becomes the Philadelphia General Hospital.
· In early American Colonial period the local government would establish institutions to care for the sick that had no family to care for them. Usually these were the elderly, sick, very young or otherwise infirm. As years passed many of the almshouses become general hospitals.
· In the 18th and 19th centuries the provision of institutions to care for the sick was many ways more self—serving then philanthropic. As with the amount of epidemic illnesses that occurred this was a way to keep the contagious populace away from the healthy population.
· The Philadelphia Almshouse is one of the oldest and most famous, it had been restructured and renamed several times, then in 1902 it became the Philadelphia General Hospital
1736 – Jean Louis, a French seaman and boat builder, left his entire estate to build a hospital for underprivileged people in New Orleans.
· This hospital was originally called the L’Hospital des Pouvres de la Charité or the Hospital of St. John, they later renamed it the Charity Hospital.
1751- The Pennsylvania Hospital, a private institution for the care of the sick in the British colonies was opened in Philadelphia.
· Benjamin Franklin was one of the founders of the hospital. He was a strong advocate of high-quality nursing care.
· He stated "Without good and careful nursing many must suffer greatly and probably perish that might have been restored to health and comfort, and become useful to themselves, their families, and the public for many years after."
1775 – George Washington – (then the commander in chief of the Revolutionary army) granted authorization to establish hospitals for sick troops to be staffed with one nurse for every ten patients.
· Both men and women served as nurses during the Revolutionary War. Then nurses were not easy to hire, they had low wages originally $2 a month, due to the shortage of nurses congress increase the pay to $4 a month in 1776 and $8 a month a year later. This rate was still very low when compared to the $40 a month that surgeons and apothecaries were making at the time.
1793 – Yellow Fever hits Philadelphia killing close to 10% of the population.
· In the late 18th and early 19th centuries epidemics such as yellow fever, smallpox, malaria and typhus were common. They often overwhelmed the communities in which they occurred straining the system they had at the time for caring of the sick- this was usually friends and family acting as nurses.
· The presence of epidemic illness caused a demand for an organized care giving arrangement.
The Free African Society provided nursing care to victims of Yellow Fever.
· The Free African Society was an organization founded for the benefit of free African Americans; they recruited volunteers to provide nursing care to white citizens in the severe shortage of nurses at the time.
1813 - The Ladies Benevolent Society of Charleston started a program to nurse for the sick poor at home.
· This was the first known example of organized home care nursing in the US. Those typically cared for were the free blacks and poor whites.
· What started out as individual uplift and good works became a mission complicated by unpredictable issues of caring for the sick at home – including chronic illness, family circumstances, and poverty.
1817 – The first private Psychiatric Hospital in the US is opened for patients in Philadelphia. It was called The Friends Asylum for the Relief of Those Deprived of the Use of Their Reason and for the Relief of Their Families and Friends.
· This was established by a Quaker community and was a new kind of institution dedicated to the “moral treatment” of the care for the insane.
1839 – Joseph Warrinton M.D. organizes the Nurse Society of Philadelphia to education women to care for mothers during childbirth and after during the postpartum period.
· These nurses were trained in the care of new mothers and infant care. They would care for mothers and newborns but unlike midwives they would be responsible to the physician who supervised their work rather then the mother who paid for it.
1861 – Dorethea Dix is appointed to superintend female nurses for the Union army during the civil war
· Over 20,000 northern & southern women worked as a part of the relief effort during the Civil war.
· About 617 Catholic sisters from 21 religious communities – many of them having hospital experience – served both the Union and Confederate soldiers in army hospitals, on battlefields and on hospital ships.
· These sisters did not volunteer individually but were rather requested for by medical and army officers or priest superiors, then there religious orders sent them to care for the sick and wounded
1863 – A 6 month nursing course is offered at the Women’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
· This was done under the direction of Ann Preston M.D. The first diploma was given in 1869 and the school was considered the first state chartered school for nurses in the US.
· In the 1860’s many female doctors, especially in New York and Boston, established formal training schools for nurses in hospitals they and started for treating of poor women and the training of other female physicians.
1872 – The New England Hospital for Women and Children opened a school for nurses with a one year curriculum.
1873 – Florence Nightingale inspired the opening of 3 schools of nursing in New York City, Boston, and New Haven.
· While there were other schools already opened these were the first to state that they were based on the principles as specified by Florence Nightingale.
1877 – The Women’s Branch of New York Mission and Tract Society starts sending the first of its trained nurses into homes to care for the sick
· Though the 1880s these nurses were sponsored by organizations in Boston, Buffalo, Philadelphia and Chicago.
· By 1909 all across the country there was almost 600 nurse organizations taking care of the poor.
1879 – Mary Mahoney graduates from the New England Hospital & Training School for Women and children. She was the first African American professional nurse.
· The New England Hospital for Women and Children’s Charter provided that one African American student and 1 Jewish student would be admitted each year. Both of these groups were excluded from most schools regularly
1885 – The first textbook written by a nurse is published. Clara S. Weeks Shaw wrote the book A Textbook of Nursing.
· Up to this point physicians were the ones who wrote textbooks for both nurses and mother who would be caring for their families at home.
1886 – Spelman Seminary – later to become Spelman College opens a nursing program for African American’s in Atlanta, Georgia.
· There was a lot of discrimination with nursing programs accepting African American’s as student. So to combat this, the black community set up schools in traditionally black hospitals and educational institutions. This segregation continued until the mid 20th century.
1888 – In Bellevue Hospital in New York City the Mills Training School for Men is opened.
· Even though men have been nurses throughout history, in American it seemed that nursing was viewed manly as a female’s job.
· The unwillingness to accept men into nursing schools though most of the 19th and 20th century is how we resulted in having an occupational field made up of primarily women.
1891 – Provident Hospital Training School opens in Chicago and is the first nursing school for African American Women in the northern US.
- This was started as the bequest of Emma Reynolds who was denied acceptance into a nursing program for whites. She prevailed upon the leaders of the Chicago African American community to open a school of nursing
- Other schools were then opened including Lincoln Hospital School of Nursing in New York City and Mercy Hospital School of Nursing in Philadelphia.
· She ascertained that sickness should be considered both in a social and economic context; this led to reforms in health care, industry, education, recreation and housing.
· She is the one who coined the term Public Health Nurse and started ideas that eventually led to the establishment of the Children’s Bureau.
1893 – Howard University opens a nursing program – it was the first started in a university setting
· This marked the entrance of nursing programs into a university setting –starting a long process to educate nurses in higher education institutions.
1902 – Lina Lavanceh Rogers is the first public school nurses in New York City and the country. Lillian Wald was vary active in making this happen.
· While school nursing was first an experiment conducted by the Henry Street Settlement of New York City, Roger’s ability to reduce the amount of absenteeism due to mostly communicable diseases led to the appointment of school nurses throughout the city and then across the county.
· This role has been expanded to include health education, student wellness, and disease prevention.
1909 – Ludie Andrews sued the Georgia State Board of Nurse Examiners for the right of African American nurses to take the state boards. She won the suit in 1920.
· The exclusion of African Americans wasn’t just in the school but also was preventing them from obtaining a state license- which was critical if one wanted to be a professional nurse.
The American Association for the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality is organized.
· This association provided organization for the efforts during the early 20th century to reduce the high infant mortality rates. There success was contingent upon thousands of nurses across the US teaching families about the importance of infant feeding with regards to breast feeding, using clean milk and, methods of infant feeding.
1912 - The Children's Bureau, an agency within the Department of Commerce and Labor is established, this was an important step promoting children's health and welfare.
The US bureau of education publishes Educational Status of Nursing - this was an early study of the education system of nurses in the US.
· The study included data from 1,098 schools of nursing and provided a description of the state of nursing education. They concluded that while education had become better there was still a lot that needed to be improved on.
1913 – California’s law restricting the hours that women work – 8 hours per day – is extended to student nurses.
· While this only applied to students many nurses feared that it would extend to them. At the time most were hired and paid by families not hospitals.
· The act was appealed to the Supreme Court – in California v. Merritt hospital they ruled the act constitutional.
1923 – Nursing and Nursing Education in the United States is published, it was the first study of American nursing
· The study helped to identify problems areas in the education of nurses and helped lay the groundwork for the increases growth of collegiate schools of nursing.
· In response to the findings Yale University offered its facilities to be used as the first experimental university-based independent school of nursing.
· The Rockefeller Foundation donated a one million dollar endowment to help assure the permanence of the school.
1925 – A study of the Present Status of the Negro Women in Nursing is completed by the Rockefeller Foundation.
· They commissioned the survey to find out what facilities were in existence for the training of African American women in then nursing field and what type of employment opportunities they had.
· Ethel Johns visited 23 historically black hospitals and schools of nursing in both northern and southern states. Her findings were discouraging and they were never made public.
The Manhattan Midwifery School opens to start educating nurse-midwives- this was the first nurse-midwifery program in the United States.
The Frontier Nursing service in a remote part of Kentucky is started by Mary Breckinridge a trained nurse-midwife.
· Leslie County, Kentucky was and area that had staggering rates of maternal and infant death was an opportunistic place to showcase the benefit of nurse-midwives.
1934 - The American Nurses Association releases recommendations on establishing the eight-hour day as the regular working day for nurses.
· During the 1920’s a time when many nurses work 12hr-24hr shifts there were efforts to reduce the working hours of nurses. They had little success until the Great Depression in which hour reduction gained favor.
· Though the American Nurses Association supported the reduction of hour movement many hospitals remained opposed. It wasn’t until several years later that they started hiring for only 8hr days. (today nurses enjoy a selection of hours worked from part to full time and 4hr,8hr or 12hr shifts)
1943 – The Bolton Act of 1943 – also known as the Nurse training act created to US Cadet Nurse Corps and provided the ability for nursing students to obtain federal financial aid.
· One of the main purposes of the act was to increase the number of student nurses and shorten the time spent in school.
· By the time the program was terminated in 1948 about 125,000 Cadet Corp nurses had graduated.
· This program was credited with improving standards in nursing schools.
1952 – The first associate degree nursing program is opened.
· Many of these programs where in community colleges, which helped reduce the cost of attending a nursing program.
1977 – Denver nurses file a class action suit alleging sex discrimination and undervaluation of nurses by the city of Denver.
· Lemons v. The City and County of Denver extended beyond equal pay for equal work and raised the issue of comparable worth. The nurse showed cases of typical male jobs such as sign painters and tree trimmers that were paid more then nurses a traditionally female occupation.
· They were unable to convince the 2 judges on the case who ruled against them. They tried appealing to the Supreme Court but were unsuccessful.
1992 – The Joint Commission for Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations – creates a nursing seat on its 24 member board of commissioners – this ended the 20yr lobbying effort by the American Nurses Association.
1993 – Vietnam Women’s Memorial dedicated in Washington D.C.
· This memorial honors the 265,000 women who served in the military during the time frame of Vietnam. Though the exact number of women who served in Vietnam is unknown about 90% of those that served were nurses.
· Diane Evans was an Army nurse who served in Vietnam from 1968-1969 she is the one who started the campaign to erect a memorial.
· Eight women died in conflict all of them were nurses.
1999- The Governor of California Gray Davis signs the nations first state law mandating nurse-to-patient ratios.
· The passage of the law was the result of a 12 year long battle between the California Nurses Association and the National Nurses Organizing Committee. The law was intended to improve patient safety and increase the quality of care.
· The law didn’t take effect until 2004 – withstanding many efforts to overturn or delay it.