The inspirational nurses in the history-transcend generation and generation

Bangladesh along with the world is visualizing the wonderful emergence of Nursing profession and nursing care. Even before a century ago the noble profession of nursing had been ignored. Before generations people were almost ignorant and unaware of institutional and organized care for the health. Things are changing and the world incarnates the ample demands for the caring nurses.  The nursing trumpets the message that humanity required care and love. This message was especially important to the sick people, who could have better state of health with nurture and compassionate care.

For each and every development the society need some instruments to reform the particular need of the society.
Today I am going to display the charisma of some nurses who become the historian of the modern nursing and who transcend beyond any generation.  They are the glorious nurses.

Bergljot Larsson
9 July 1883 – 29 December 1968
Pioneer and leader of Norwegian nursing Bergljot Larsson (1883-1968) established the Norwegian Nursing Association (NNA) and was its leader for 23 years.  She took great part in the modernization of Norwegian nursing, especially in the time between the great world wars. Bergljot Larsson was a Norwegian nurse and organizational leader.
She founded the nurses' union ‘Norsk Sykepleierforbund’ in 1912, and chaired the association from 1912 to 1935. Her main strategy for coordinating the nursing things was education.

M. Elizabeth Carnegie
April 19, 1916-February 20, 2008
M. Elizabeth Carnegie an American nurse (RN, DPA, MS, PhD, FAAN) reminds us of her revolutionary achievement as the first black nurse appointed to the board of the Florida Nurses Association. He fought for the rights until 1949, when she was officially elected as a legitimate, not just courtesy member, of that board.
M. Elizabeth Carnegie has made noteworthy contributions to the development of nursing as a profession, science and discipline. She is the author of The Path We Tread and Blacks in Nursing Worldwide.

Clara Louise Maass
June 28, 1876 – August 24, 1901
Clara Louise Maass is an American nurse who died as a result of volunteering for medical experiments to study yellow fever.
She worked as an Army nurse in Florida, Cuba, and the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. She became involved in a controversy over the cause of yellow fever. A Cuban doctor had proposed that transmission was not by personal contact, but instead through the stegomyia fasciata mosquito. The test for proof was clear: volunteers were needed to expose themselves to the infected mosquito. Clara was the only American woman to volunteer. She contracted the disease, but recovered. Then on August 14, 1901, she offered herself again; ten days later she died. With Clara’s sacrifice, it had been proved that the mosquito was the carrier of yellow fever. Her beautiful smile reflects her philanthropic approaches to the humanity

Edith Louisa Cavell
4 December 1865 –12 October 1915
Edith was a British nurse. She has been renowned for saving the lives of soldiers from both sides without discrimination and in helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during the First World War, for which she was arrested. She was accused of treason, found guilty by a court-martial and sentenced to death. Baron von der Lancken (The German Governor-General of Belgium) stated that Cavell should be pardoned because of her complete honesty and because she had helped save so many lives, German and the  Allied.

However, the German General of the Eastern and Western Front in the German Army during World War I, (In 1915 he had been Military Governor of Brussels), ordered that "in the interests of the State" the implementation of the death penalty against Cavell should be immediate.” There were ample international supports on her, but Cavell was shot by a German firing squad. Her execution received worldwide condemnation and extensive press coverage. The Edith Cavell Memorial at St Martin's Place, London everyday reminds the world of her loftiest deeds.

Ethel Bedford Fenwick
26 January 1857 – 13 March 1947
Ethel Bedford is a gallant nurse working on professionalization of nursing care, in founding Florence Nightingale International Foundation, the premier foundation of the International Council of Nurses, and was its president for the first five years. She extended significantly the training period for nurses, and campaigned for the state registration of nurses in the United Kingdom. This was achieved through the Nurses Registration Act 1919, and Ethel Gordon Fenwick appears as "Nurse No. 1" when the register opened in 1923. (New Zealand had been the first country to introduce nurse registration in 1902.
Mrs Bedford Fenwick was a daughter of a Parliament Member, gifted and rich.   She was supported by the newly formed British Nurses Association, but not everyone agreed with her views. Nightingale and many doctors were against the ‘professionalization’ of nursing through registration.
She founded the British Journal of Nursing in 1893, remained its editor until 1946. Mrs Bedford Fenwick argued for three main components to mark how nurse training should be organized:
A three year training
A standardized national curriculum
A final examination
Mrs Bedford Fenwick becoming the first name on the world’s first Nursing Register.  

Ellen Dougherty
20 September 1844 – 3 November 1919
Ellen Dougherty is a New Zealand nurse, was the first Registered Nurse in the world. She trained at Wellington Hospital from 1885 and completed a certificate in nursing in 1887. In 1893 she accepted the post of matron of Palmerston North Hospital.

Clara Barton                                     
December 25, 1821- April 12,1912
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Barton worked as the loftiest volunteer. In about 1869, Barton had worked herself into a physical breakdown. During her trip to Europe she learned about the Treaty of Geneva, which provided relief for sick and wounded soldiers. Twelve nations had signed the treaty, except United States. When Barton returned to the United States in 1873, she began her crusade for the Treaty of Geneva and the Red Cross. Finally the United States signed the Geneva Agreement in 1882. Barton served as the first president of the American Red Cross organization formed in 1881.
The mission of her life can be summed up in her own words, "You must never so much as think whether you like it or not, whether it is bearable or not; you must never think of anything except the need, and how to meet it."

Rufaidah bint Sa'ad
During the period of Prophet Mohammad -7th century
Rufaidah bint Sa'ad founder of the Nursing Profession in Islam and most probably she is the first nursen in the world.
When the world was visualizing a new civilization with the emergence of Islam, people were almost ignorant and unaware of institutional and organized care for the health. It was then that Rufaidah appeared with the message that humanity required care and love. This message was especially important to the sick people, who could have better state of health with nurture and compassionate care. Rufaida was the first person to stand beside the vulnerable and feeble people.

Rufaidah bint Sa’ad is recognized as the first Muslim nurse (Kasule, 2003; Mansour & Fikry, 1987), who came from the Bani Aslam tribe of the Khazraj tribal confederation in Madinah. She is also called as Rufaidah al-Asalmiya. She was born in Yathrib before the migration of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be upon Him) and was among the first people in Madina to accept Islam and was one of the Ansar women who welcomed the Prophet on arrival in Madina. The Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) gave permission for her to erect a tent within a mosque and deliver health-related teachings to the community (Al-Osimy, 1994).

While nursing historians in Europe and America identify Florence Nightingale as the founder of modern nursing, Middle Eastern countries attribute this status to Rufaida, a Muslim nurse. Tales of Rufaida’s heroic deeds have been handed down verbally from generation to generation of Muslim nurses; girls from Muslim world will be inspired to encompass their future plan to be a skill and compassionate nurse. Information by Prof. Dr. Omar Hasan Kasule, Sr. from a Paper Presented at the 3rd International Nursing Conference "Empowerment and Health: An Agenda for Nurses in the 21st Century" held in Brunei Dar as Salam 1st-4th November 1998

Daisy Bates
1863-1951
Daisy Bates is an Irish girl.  Her best contribution is her incessant dedication for the Aborigines for 26 years from 1919 to 1945. She studied customs, languages, rites and legends going back to the Dreamtime. To passengers on the Trans-Continental train she was a familiar sight, an old-fashioned figure in her Edwardian attire. Her book, The Passing of the Aborigines, published in London in 1938 eared an international reputation.

Dorothea Dix
1802-1887
Dorothea Lynde Dix was an author, teacher and reformer. Her efforts on behalf of the mentally ill and prisoners helped create dozens of new institutions across the United States and in Europe and changed people's perceptions of these populations.

She had volunteered to teach a Sunday School class for women inmates. Upon entering the jail she witnessed such horrible images that her life, from that point on, was changed forever. After witnessing these conditions she immediately took the matter to the courts and after a serious of battles, she finally won.

In about 1848, she sent a document to the U S Congress asking that five million acres land to be used for the care of the mentally ill. In 1854 the bill passed and was approved by both houses but was vetoed by President Franklin Pierce.

She extended her work into the Channel Islands, and then to France, Italy, Austria, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, a part of Germany and Japan.

Mary Eliza Mahoney
1845 - 1926
Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first African-American registered nurse in the U.S.A.  Unlike many blacks of her day, Mary Mahoney decided not to go into domestic work, but enrolled in nursing school. In 1879, out of a class of 40 students, only she, at age 34, and two other white students, graduated.

In 1896, Mahoney became one of the original members of a predominately white Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada (later known as the American Nurses Association or ANA). In 1908 she was cofounder of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN).
In 1936, the NACGN created an award in honor of Mahoney for women who contributed to racial integration in nursing.

Florence Nightingale
12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910
She is known to everyone as a founder of Modern Nursing.
Her role in during the Crimean war (1854-56). is stunningly remarkable. She took thirty-eight nurses with her, eighteen of them Roman Catholic or Anglican nuns. In 1856 Florence Nightingale returned to England as a national heroine. She had been deeply shocked by the lack of hygiene and elementary care that the men received in the British Army.
She really had been able to bring a change that the health condition of the wounded soldiers developed magically. She has been the pioneer of nursing care.

Mary Adelaide Nutting
November 1, 1858- October 3, 1948
Mary Adelaide Nutting of Canada has been honored for her outstanding contributions to nursing and nursing education. She 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.

In 1907 Mary Adelaide Nutting joined the faculty of Teachers College, Columbia University and became the world's first professor of nursing. Nutting led the Department of Nursing and Health at Teachers College from 1910 until her retirement in1925.

Sophia French Palmer
28 May 1853-1920
Sophia French Palmer was an influential nursing pioneer. An administrator and educator, she is best known as the first editor of the American Journal of Nursing. During the first twenty years of the journal, Palmer's forceful editorials addressed critical issues and promoted change.

Georgina Fane Pope
January 1, 1862- June 6, 1938
Pope was the lead nurse of the Canadian Army Nursing Service in South Africa during the Boer War (1899–1902). In 1908 she became the first "matron" in the history of the Canadian Army Medical Corps. She served during World War I in England and France from 1917–18. She was the first Canadian to be awarded the Royal Red Cross.

Margaret Sanger
14 September, 1879 -September 6, 1966
Margaret Sanger an American Nurse is an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. Sanger popularized the term "birth control", opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established organizations that evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
In 1914, Sanger's articles in The Woman Radical brought her a federal indictment for violating federal postal obscenity laws, prompting her to flee to England.
She opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, modeled after those Sanger had seen in Holland. On October 16, 1916, dozens of Jewish and Italian immigrant women from Brooklyn's crowded Brownsville section lined up to receive counseling and birth control information. Nine days later police closed the clinic and arrested Sanger, Byrne, and the clinic's interpreter. Sanger was convicted and served 30 days in jail. Legal failure had brought victory, however. The publicity surrounding Sanger's activities had made birth control a talk of that contemporary society.

Mary Jane Seacole
1805-1881
Mary Jane Seacole a daughter of a Scottish military was a heroine of the Crimean War and a Jamaican nurse. She was born in Kingston, Jamaica. Mary was well educated and she was a skilled nurse.
During the Crimean War she tried to join the nursing at battle field. But her appeal had been denied again and again. Britain, apparently, was not ready to welcome a black nurse.

Now she took another way!  Mary travelled on her own initiative and in 1856 established the British Hotel near Balaclava, using her own monies in order to provide ‘mess-table and comfortable quarters for sick and convalescent officers’. She spent many hours on the battlefield attending the wounded. After the war, Mary Seacole was bankrupt, but her story was carried by the British press and money was raised by subscription to pay off her debts.

 Mabel Keaton Staupers
February 27, 1890 – November 29, 1989
Mabel Keaton Staupers was an African-American (From Barbados West Indies leader in breaking down racial barriers in American nursing.
Mabel K. Staupers engaged in a life-long struggle to break down color barriers in health care services and the profession of nursing. During World War II, as Executive Secretary of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, she led the movement to gain full integration of Black nurses into the armed forces and the professional nursing organizations. The struggle to achieve recognition, status, and acceptance of Black nurses into the institutional structures of American nursing was significantly advanced because of her leadership.

Susie King Taylor
February 27, 1890-November 29, 1989
Susie King Taylor had been a Civil War teacher, nurse, and laundress; thereafter, a teacher and domestic worker. She lived in Savannah and gained her freedom from slavery at the age 14. She contributed to Civil War efforts by serving as a nurse to the black soldiers and by teaching them to read and write.

The histories of the nurses have been depicted here in honor to the nurses of the whole year in the month of International Nurses Day 2017.

 

The inspirational nurses in the history-transcend generation and generation

Bangladesh along with the world is visualizing the wonderful emergence of Nursing profession and nursing care. Even before a century ago the noble profession of nursing had been ignored. Before generations people were almost ignorant and unaware of institutional and organized care for the health. Things are changing and the world incarnates the ample demands for the caring nurses. The nursing trumpets the message that humanity required care and love. This message was especially important to the sick people, who could have better state of health with nurture and compassionate care. For each and every development the society need some instruments to reform the particular need of the society. Today I am going to display the charisma of some nurses who become the historian of the modern nursing and who transcend beyond any generation. They are the glorious nurses. Bergljot Larsson 9 July 1883 29 December 1968 Pioneer and leader of Norwegian nursing Bergljot Larsson (1883-1968) established the Norwegian Nursing Association (NNA) and was its leader for 23 years. She took great part in the modernization of Norwegian nursing, especially in the time between the great world wars. Bergljot Larsson was a Norwegian nurse and organizational leader. She founded the nurses union Norsk Sykepleierforbund in 1912, and chaired the association from 1912 to 1935. Her main strategy for coordinating the nursing things was education. M. Elizabeth Carnegie April 19, 1916-February 20, 2008 M. Elizabeth Carnegie an American nurse (RN, DPA, MS, PhD, FAAN) reminds us of her revolutionary achievement as the first black nurse appointed to the board of the Florida Nurses Association. He fought for the rights until 1949, when she was officially elected as a legitimate, not just courtesy member, of that board. M. Elizabeth Carnegie has made noteworthy contributions to the development of nursing as a profession, science and discipline. She is the author of The Path We Tread and Blacks in Nursing Worldwide. Clara Louise Maass June 28, 1876 August 24, 1901 Clara Louise Maass is an American nurse who died as a result of volunteering for medical experiments to study yellow fever. She worked as an Army nurse in Florida, Cuba, and the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. She became involved in a controversy over the cause of yellow fever. A Cuban doctor had proposed that transmission was not by personal contact, but instead through the stegomyia fasciata mosquito. The test for proof was clear: volunteers were needed to expose themselves to the infected mosquito. Clara was the only American woman to volunteer. She contracted the disease, but recovered. Then on August 14, 1901, she offered herself again; ten days later she died. With Claras sacrifice, it had been proved that the mosquito was the carrier of yellow fever. Her beautiful smile reflects her philanthropic approaches to the humanity Edith Louisa Cavell 4 December 1865 12 October 1915 Edith was a British nurse. She has been renowned for saving the lives of soldiers from both sides without discrimination and in helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during the First World War, for which she was arrested. She was accused of treason, found guilty by a court-martial and sentenced to death. Baron von der Lancken (The German Governor-General of Belgium) stated that Cavell should be pardoned because of her complete honesty and because she had helped save so many lives, German and the Allied. However, the German General of the Eastern and Western Front in the German Army during World War I, (In 1915 he had been Military Governor of Brussels), ordered that in the interests of the State the implementation of the death penalty against Cavell should be immediate. There were ample international supports on her, but Cavell was shot by a German firing squad. Her execution received worldwide condemnation and extensive press coverage. The Edith Cavell Memorial at St Martins Place, London everyday reminds the world of her loftiest deeds. Ethel Bedford Fenwick 26 January 1857 13 March 1947 Ethel Bedford is a gallant nurse working on professionalization of nursing care, in founding Florence Nightingale International Foundation, the premier foundation of the International Council of Nurses, and was its president for the first five years. She extended significantly the training period for nurses, and campaigned for the state registration of nurses in the United Kingdom. This was achieved through the Nurses Registration Act 1919, and Ethel Gordon Fenwick appears as Nurse No. 1 when the register opened in 1923. (New Zealand had been the first country to introduce nurse registration in 1902. Mrs Bedford Fenwick was a daughter of a Parliament Member, gifted and rich. She was supported by the newly formed British Nurses Association, but not everyone agreed with her views. Nightingale and many doctors were against the professionalization of nursing through registration. She founded the British Journal of Nursing in 1893, remained its editor until 1946. Mrs Bedford Fenwick argued for three main components to mark how nurse training should be organized: A three year training A standardized national curriculum A final examination Mrs Bedford Fenwick becoming the first name on the worlds first Nursing Register. Ellen Dougherty 20 September 1844 3 November 1919 Ellen Dougherty is a New Zealand nurse, was the first Registered Nurse in the world. She trained at Wellington Hospital from 1885 and completed a certificate in nursing in 1887. In 1893 she accepted the post of matron of Palmerston North Hospital. Clara Barton December 25, 1821- April 12,1912 At the outbreak of the Civil War, Barton worked as the loftiest volunteer. In about 1869, Barton had worked herself into a physical breakdown. During her trip to Europe she learned about the Treaty of Geneva, which provided relief for sick and wounded soldiers. Twelve nations had signed the treaty, except United States. When Barton returned to the United States in 1873, she began her crusade for the Treaty of Geneva and the Red Cross. Finally the United States signed the Geneva Agreement in 1882. Barton served as the first president of the American Red Cross organization formed in 1881. The mission of her life can be summed up in her own words, You must never so much as think whether you like it or not, whether it is bearable or not; you must never think of anything except the need, and how to meet it. Rufaidah bint Saad During the period of Prophet Mohammad -7th century Rufaidah bint Saad founder of the Nursing Profession in Islam and most probably she is the first nursen in the world. When the world was visualizing a new civilization with the emergence of Islam, people were almost ignorant and unaware of institutional and organized care for the health. It was then that Rufaidah appeared with the message that humanity required care and love. This message was especially important to the sick people, who could have better state of health with nurture and compassionate care. Rufaida was the first person to stand beside the vulnerable and feeble people. Rufaidah bint Saad is recognized as the first Muslim nurse (Kasule, 2003; Mansour Fikry, 1987), who came from the Bani Aslam tribe of the Khazraj tribal confederation in Madinah. She is also called as Rufaidah al-Asalmiya. She was born in Yathrib before the migration of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be upon Him) and was among the first people in Madina to accept Islam and was one of the Ansar women who welcomed the Prophet on arrival in Madina. The Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) gave permission for her to erect a tent within a mosque and deliver health-related teachings to the community (Al-Osimy, 1994). While nursing historians in Europe and America identify Florence Nightingale as the founder of modern nursing, Middle Eastern countries attribute this status to Rufaida, a Muslim nurse. Tales of Rufaidas heroic deeds have been handed down verbally from generation to generation of Muslim nurses; girls from Muslim world will be inspired to encompass their future plan to be a skill and compassionate nurse. Information by Prof. Dr. Omar Hasan Kasule, Sr. from a Paper Presented at the 3rd International Nursing Conference Empowerment and Health: An Agenda for Nurses in the 21st Century held in Brunei Dar as Salam 1st-4th November 1998 Daisy Bates 1863-1951 Daisy Bates is an Irish girl. Her best contribution is her incessant dedication for the Aborigines for 26 years from 1919 to 1945. She studied customs, languages, rites and legends going back to the Dreamtime. To passengers on the Trans-Continental train she was a familiar sight, an old-fashioned figure in her Edwardian attire. Her book, The Passing of the Aborigines, published in London in 1938 eared an international reputation. Dorothea Dix 1802-1887 Dorothea Lynde Dix was an author, teacher and reformer. Her efforts on behalf of the mentally ill and prisoners helped create dozens of new institutions across the United States and in Europe and changed peoples perceptions of these populations. She had volunteered to teach a Sunday School class for women inmates. Upon entering the jail she witnessed such horrible images that her life, from that point on, was changed forever. After witnessing these conditions she immediately took the matter to the courts and after a serious of battles, she finally won. In about 1848, she sent a document to the U S Congress asking that five million acres land to be used for the care of the mentally ill. In 1854 the bill passed and was approved by both houses but was vetoed by President Franklin Pierce. She extended her work into the Channel Islands, and then to France, Italy, Austria, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, a part of Germany and Japan. Mary Eliza Mahoney 1845 - 1926 Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first African-American registered nurse in the U.S.A. Unlike many blacks of her day, Mary Mahoney decided not to go into domestic work, but enrolled in nursing school. In 1879, out of a class of 40 students, only she, at age 34, and two other white students, graduated. In 1896, Mahoney became one of the original members of a predominately white Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada (later known as the American Nurses Association or ANA). In 1908 she was cofounder of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN). In 1936, the NACGN created an award in honor of Mahoney for women who contributed to racial integration in nursing. Florence Nightingale 12 May 1820 13 August 1910 She is known to everyone as a founder of Modern Nursing. Her role in during the Crimean war (1854-56). is stunningly remarkable. She took thirty-eight nurses with her, eighteen of them Roman Catholic or Anglican nuns. In 1856 Florence Nightingale returned to England as a national heroine. She had been deeply shocked by the lack of hygiene and elementary care that the men received in the British Army. She really had been able to bring a change that the health condition of the wounded soldiers developed magically. She has been the pioneer of nursing care. Mary Adelaide Nutting November 1, 1858- October 3, 1948 Mary Adelaide Nutting of Canada has been honored for her outstanding contributions to nursing and nursing education. She 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. In 1907 Mary Adelaide Nutting joined the faculty of Teachers College, Columbia University and became the worlds first professor of nursing. Nutting led the Department of Nursing and Health at Teachers College from 1910 until her retirement in1925. Sophia French Palmer 28 May 1853-1920 Sophia French Palmer was an influential nursing pioneer. An administrator and educator, she is best known as the first editor of the American Journal of Nursing. During the first twenty years of the journal, Palmers forceful editorials addressed critical issues and promoted change. Georgina Fane Pope January 1, 1862- June 6, 1938 Pope was the lead nurse of the Canadian Army Nursing Service in South Africa during the Boer War (18991902). In 1908 she became the first matron in the history of the Canadian Army Medical Corps. She served during World War I in England and France from 191718. She was the first Canadian to be awarded the Royal Red Cross. Margaret Sanger 14 September, 1879 -September 6, 1966 Margaret Sanger an American Nurse is an American birth control activist, sex educator, writer, and nurse. Sanger popularized the term birth control, opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, and established organizations that evolved into the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. In 1914, Sangers articles in The Woman Radical brought her a federal indictment for violating federal postal obscenity laws, prompting her to flee to England. She opened the first birth control clinic in the United States, modeled after those Sanger had seen in Holland. On October 16, 1916, dozens of Jewish and Italian immigrant women from Brooklyns crowded Brownsville section lined up to receive counseling and birth control information. Nine days later police closed the clinic and arrested Sanger, Byrne, and the clinics interpreter. Sanger was convicted and served 30 days in jail. Legal failure had brought victory, however. The publicity surrounding Sangers activities had made birth control a talk of that contemporary society. Mary Jane Seacole 1805-1881 Mary Jane Seacole a daughter of a Scottish military was a heroine of the Crimean War and a Jamaican nurse. She was born in Kingston, Jamaica. Mary was well educated and she was a skilled nurse. During the Crimean War she tried to join the nursing at battle field. But her appeal had been denied again and again. Britain, apparently, was not ready to welcome a black nurse. Now she took another way! Mary travelled on her own initiative and in 1856 established the British Hotel near Balaclava, using her own monies in order to provide mess-table and comfortable quarters for sick and convalescent officers. She spent many hours on the battlefield attending the wounded. After the war, Mary Seacole was bankrupt, but her story was carried by the British press and money was raised by subscription to pay off her debts. Mabel Keaton Staupers February 27, 1890 November 29, 1989 Mabel Keaton Staupers was an African-American (From Barbados West Indies leader in breaking down racial barriers in American nursing. Mabel K. Staupers engaged in a life-long struggle to break down color barriers in health care services and the profession of nursing. During World War II, as Executive Secretary of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, she led the movement to gain full integration of Black nurses into the armed forces and the professional nursing organizations. The struggle to achieve recognition, status, and acceptance of Black nurses into the institutional structures of American nursing was significantly advanced because of her leadership. Susie King Taylor February 27, 1890-November 29, 1989 Susie King Taylor had been a Civil War teacher, nurse, and laundress; thereafter, a teacher and domestic worker. She lived in Savannah and gained her freedom from slavery at the age 14. She contributed to Civil War efforts by serving as a nurse to the black soldiers and by teaching them to read and write. The histories of the nurses have been depicted here in honor to the nurses of the whole year in the month of International Nurses Day 2017.