|
As the Civil War begins, North Carolina has neither hospitals nor
trained nurses. Many Southern women volunteer their services as
nurses due to the shocking number of casualties. Florence Nightingale's
"Notes on Nursing," published in 1860, becomes the inspiration
and only instruction manual for many.
Wilmington, which wasn't captured until 1865, is one of the only
remaining entry points for food and medicine into the South due
to the Union blockade. Drugs had to be smuggled throughout the state.
Southern nurses resort to homemade remedies: cucumbers or balsam
for burns, jimson weed for fever, rose geranium for diarrhea, wild
yam for scurvy, and blackberry root for dysentery.
Prior to the War, the lives of most American women had been restricted
to domestic duties. By the War's end, women have established fifteen
military hospitals in NC, and helped create the new career of professional
nursing.
 Formal
training for nurses begins in the U.S. with schools in New York,
Connecticut and Boston. By 1900, there are 432 nursing schools throughout
the country.
St. Peter's Hospital in Charlotte, the first civilian hospital in
the state, begins seeing patients. The leading force behind its
creation is Jane Wilkes, who had served in Charlotte's Confederate
hospitals during the Civil War. (photo courtesy of UNC Charlotte
Special Collections)
NC's state board of health is organized as part of the effort to
cope with the typhoid epidemics sweeping the country.
Through the efforts of Jane Wilkes, the Good Samaritan Hospital
opens in Charlotte. It is the first privately-funded, independent
hospital in NC exclusively for the treatment of African-Americans.
 The
state's first nursing school opens at Rex Hospital in Raleigh. Mary
Lewis Wyche, a Vance County native and nursing graduate of Philadelphia
General Hospital, started the school shortly after becoming head
nurse at Rex. Watts Hospital School of Nursing opens in Durham in
1895, and is the oldest school of nursing still in operation in
the state. (photo courtesy of NC Division of Archives and History)
St. Agnes School of Nursing in Raleigh becomes the first professional
nursing school for African-Americans in NC Additional schools of
nursing for African-Americans open in 1902 at Charlotte's Good Samaritan
Hospital, and at Lincoln Hospital in Durham.
The newly formed American Nurses Association, the first women's
professional group in the U.S., calls for laws establishing professional
standards, the regulation of nurse training schools, and the registration
of nurses.
Nursing school graduates are given their first opportunity for military
service during the Spanish-American War. As a result, mortality
in the army is less than in any previous war.
 Lydia
Holman, a nurse from Philadelphia, arrives in Mitchell County in
the NC mountains to care for a wealthy woman who is ill with typhoid
fever at her vacation home. Traveling mountain trails by horseback,
Holman begins providing the only health care available to the citizens
of this remote area, staying until her death in 1960 at age 92.
(photo courtesy of Shannon Holman Gurley)
Mary Lewis Wyche organizes and becomes the first president of the
NC Nurses Association, which frames a bill to provide for the registration
of trained nurses. On March 3, 1903, NC becomes the first state
in the nation to pass a nurse registration law. New York and Virginia
follow North Carolina later that year. By 1923, all 48 states have
legislation regulating nursing.
Developing exams and issuing licenses is entrusted to the new Board
of Nursing, composed of three registered nurses from the NC Nurses
Association and two physicians from the NC Medical Society. Mary
Lewis Wyche is one of the first nurses on the Board. Annie Lowe
Rutherford of Fayetteville becomes the first African-American nurse
to receive a license.
Hoke County opens the first public tuberculosis sanatorium in NC,
where patients suffering from the disease stayed for months or years
until they either recovered or died.
The Guilford County Department of Public Health becomes the first
full-time county health agency in NC and the second oldest in the
country. Robeson County opens the first strictly rural health department
in the country in 1912.
The National Organization for Public Health Nursing is established,
with the legendary Lillian Wald of New York's Henry Street Settlement
as president and Lydia Holman a member of its first board of directors.
Inspired by Holman's work in Mitchell County, the organization convinces
the American Red Cross to establish nursing services for rural areas
nationwide. Between 1915 and 1935, the Red Cross supervises public
health nurses in 52 of NC's 100 counties. These nurses provide the
only health care available to many North Carolinians for years.
 A
NC Board of Health survey of school children reveals shocking rates
of tuberculosis, malaria, malnutrition, impaired vision and hearing,
diseased throats and poor teeth. In 1919, the NC legislature appropriates
funds for six full-time nurses to travel statewide to provide services
for all students under the seventh grade, regardless of race. Within
two years, the six nurses see 92,566 students and educate countless
teachers and parents on health care issues. All six nurses remain
in their jobs for over 18 years. (photo: 1922 school nurse, courtesy
of NC Division Of Archives and History)
NC passes a law establishing a training school inspector appointed
by the NCNA. The next year, the NC League of Nursing Education is
formed as a section of the NCNA. The next two decades see an increased
interest in nursing education, with more carefully planned curricula,
higher entrance requirements, and better classrooms and instructors.
Women win the right to vote.
Congress passes the Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infant Protection
Act, making funds available for visiting nurses, maternity centers,
and clinics for infants and mothers. Sheppard-Towner has an enormous
impact on public health nursing in NC By the end of the decade,
there are 94 public health nurses employed by county health departments
statewide.
 Carrie
Early Broadfoot of Fayetteville organizes a professional association
for African-American nurses. In 1948, the NCNA votes to open its
membership to all registered nurses in NC, and the "Colored
Nurses Association" votes itself out of existence. (photo courtesy
of NCNA)
NC adopts the Model County Midwife Regulations, requiring that all
midwives receive instruction from doctors or nurses in order to
receive a permit to practice. Public health nurses' work with lay
midwives contributes more than any other factor to lowering NC's
infant mortality rate.
 Duke
University Hospital begins a three-year nursing diploma program.
Nursing students can get a baccalaureate degree with two additional
years at Duke University. (photo: Duke grads '31, courtesy of Duke
University Medical Archives)
UNC-CH establishes a Department of Public Health, the first training
center in the South for public health workers. The department becomes
the School of Public Health in 1939, the fourth such school in the
nation and the first at a state university.
During World War II, demand for nurses was acute, both in military
service and at home. A 1941 issue of the NCNA's Tar Heel Nurse magazine
appeals to its members to encourage inactive nurses to take refresher
courses, help recruit high school and college graduates to nursing
schools, and join the military service or volunteer for civilian
defense.
 Ruth
Hay, a national leader in public health nursing education, is appointed
to establish the UNC Department of Public Health Nursing at the
School of Public Health. Hay is the first female professor appointed
to the University's faculty. In 1946, the department institutes
a cooperative program with NC Central in Durham, whose African-American
students were denied admission to UNC. Under the leadership of Lincoln
School of Nursing graduate Mary Mills, registered nurses can earn
a public health certificate after one year of study at NC Central.
(photo: Ruth Hay, courtesy of UNC School of Public Health. Mary
Mills, courtesy of NCNA)
The
U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps, a federally funded training program, is
created. By 1945, over 1,000 nurses from NC are serving in the Armed
Forces.
During WWII, NC leads the nation in the rate of rejection of its
draftees for medical reasons. In response, a commission recommends
creating what would become the UNC Division of Health Affairs by
expanding the medical school at Chapel Hill from two years to four,
building a teaching hospital, and establishing schools of nursing
and dentistry to join those of public health and pharmacy.
NC launches the Good Health Program. Promoted by NC native Kay Kyser,
the most popular big band leader in America at the time, and endorsed
strongly by the NCNA, the campaign includes a song by Kyser, Frank
Sinatra and Dinah Shore called "It's All Up To You."
|
