Ernestine Wiedenbach was born on August 18, 1900, in
Hamburg, Germany. Her family moved to New York in 1909. She received a B.A. from Wellesley College
in 1922, an R.N. from Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Nursing in 1925, an M.A. from Teachers
College, Columbia University in 1934, and a certificate in nurse-midwifery from the Maternity Center
Association School for Nurse-Midwives in New York in 1946, where she also taught until 1951.
Wiedenbach joined the Yale faculty in 1952 as an instructor in maternity nursing. She was named an
assistant professor of obstetric nursing in 1954 and an associate professor in 1956, when the Yale
School of Nursing established a master's degree program under which she directed the major in
maternal and newborn health nursing. She is the author of books used widely in nursing education.
Wiedenbach retired in 1966. She died on March 8, 1998.
"My thesis is that nursing art is not
comprised of rational nor reactionary actions but rather of deliberative action."
Wiedenbach, 1964
