The American Nurses Association (ANA) is a 501(c)(6) professional organization to advance and protect the profession of nursing. It started in 1896 as the Nurses Associated Alumnae and was renamed the American Nurses Association in 1911. It is based in Silver Spring, Maryland and Jennifer Mensik Kennedy is the current president.
Isabel Adams Hampton Robb (1859–1910) was an American nurse theorist, author, nursing school administrator and early leader. Hampton was the first Superintendent of Nurses at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, wrote several influential textbooks, and helped to found the organizations that became known as the National League for Nursing, the International Council of Nurses, and the American Nurses Association. Hampton also played a large role in advancing the social status of nursing through her work in developing a curriculum of more advanced training during her time at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing.
Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first African-American to study and work as a professionally trained nurse in the United States. In 1879, Mahoney was the first African American to graduate from an American school of nursing.
Mabel Keaton Staupers was a pioneer in the American nursing profession. Faced with racial discrimination after graduating from nursing school, Staupers became an advocate for racial equality in the nursing profession.
The National Black Nurses Association (NBNA) was founded in 1971 in Cleveland, Ohio. It was incorporated on September 2, 1972. The organization is dedicated to promoting African American women in the profession of nursing.
Jane Edna Hunter, an African-American social worker, Hunter was born on the Woodburn Farm plantation near Pendleton, South Carolina. She was involved in the NAACP and NAACW. Jane Edna Hunter is widely Known for her work in 1911 when she established the Working Girls Association in Cleveland, Ohio, which later became the Phillis Wheatley Association of Cleveland.
Casualty 1900s, broadcast in the U.S. as London Hospital, is a British hospital drama inspired by but otherwise unrelated to BBC One drama Casualty.
May Louise Hinton-Wykle, is an American nurse, gerontologist, educator, researcher, and the first African-American Marvin E. and Ruth Durr Denekas Endowed Chair at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing of Case Western Reserve University. Wykle also serves as a professor at Georgia Southwestern State University and teaches Geriatric Nursing, Mental Health Nursing, Nursing Administration, and Minority Student Recruitment and Retention.
Marilyn Hughes Gaston is a physician and researcher. She was the first black woman to direct the Bureau of Primary Health Care in the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration. She is most famous for her work studying sickle cell disease (SCD).
Eunice Verdell Rivers Laurie (1899–1986) was an African American nurse who worked in the state of Alabama. She is known for her work as one of the nurses of the U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study in Macon County from 1932 to 1972.
Helene Bresslau Schweitzer was a German medical missionary, nurse, social worker, linguist, public medicine enthusiast, editor, feminist, sociologist, and the wife/confidant of Albert Schweitzer, who co-founded the Albert Schweitzer Hospital with her. Albert, a medical missionary, did not mention her role in his efforts. According to writer Mary Kingsley, she is "one form of human being whose praise has never adequately been sung, namely, the missionary's wife."
Rae Landy was a nursing pioneer. She was one of the first two American nurses sent to Palestine by Hadassah in 1913.
Chief Kofoworola Abeni Pratt Hon. FRCN was a Nigerian nurse who was one of the first notable black nurses to work in Britain's National Health Service. She subsequently became vice-president of the International Council of Nurses and the first black Chief Nursing Officer of Nigeria, working in the Federal Ministry of Health.
Martha Alma Wall was an American Christian medical missionary, philosopher, nurse, and author who is best known for her humanitarian work providing health care to lepers in British Nigeria during the 1930s and 1940s with the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM). She was born in Hillsboro, Kansas to a traditional Christian family and was a devout member of both the non-denominational Salina Bible Church and the Baptist Women's Union. She became a registered nurse and studied theology at Tabor College before leaving for a medical mission in British Nigeria in 1938. After returning to America, Wall worked as a Clinical Supervisor of Vocational Nurses for Kern General Hospital during the 1950s and as an instructor and director of nursing services for Bakersfield College during the 1960s. Throughout her adult life, she was a dedicated member of the California State Licensed Vocational Nurses Association. Wall is noted as the founder of the Children's Welfare Center at the Katsina Leper Settlement. She documented her missionary work in Sub-Saharan Africa in the book she authored Splinters from an African Log, which was published in 1960.
Emma Ann Reynolds (1862-1917) was an African-American teacher, who had a desire to address the health needs of her community. Refused entrance to nurses training schools because of racism, she influenced the creation of Provident Hospital in Chicago and was one of its first four nursing graduates. Continuing her education, Reynolds became a medical doctor serving at posts in Texas, Louisiana and Washington, D.C. before permanently settling in Ohio and completing her practice there.
Dorothy Alice Cornelius was a Registered Nurse from Ohio who served in executive and in leadership positions in nursing. Cornelius was the only person to be president of the American Nurses Association, the International Council of Nurses, and the American Journal of Nursing Company.
Alma Elizabeth Gault was an American nurse administrator. Gault successfully advocated for African American nurses and their educational institutions to be integrated into professional nursing associations. Under her leadership, Meharry Medical College School of Nursing, in Nashville, Tennessee, was the first segregated black nursing school to attain membership in the American Association of Collegiate Schools of Nursing. For her achievement's Gault was inducted into the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame in 1984.
Lottie Cornella Isbell Blake, M.D., was an American physician, medical missionary, and educator. Blake was the first black Seventh Day Adventist to become a physician. She is remembered for her revolutionary success in hydrotherapy which at the time was not seen as a sophisticated medical treatment. Lottie Blake, along with her husband Dr. David Emanuel Blake, travelled and worked in Panama, Haiti, and Jamaica as a self-supporting medical missionary. During her life, Dr. Lottie Blake became licensed to practice medicine in Ohio, Tennessee, Alabama, Panama, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Blake found the cure for “Smokey City pneumonia” which was caused by smog in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After 50 years of service, Lottie Blake was honored by the American Medical Association at eighty-one years old.
Betty Smith Williams is an American nurse. Williams was the first African-American nurse to graduate from the nursing school at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). She later became the first black person to teach at college or university level in California. Williams is also a co-founder of the National Black Nurses Association (NBNA).
