Mary
Adelaide
Nutting was
born
November 1, 1858, in Frost
Village, Quebec, Canada. In 1889, she went to
Baltimore
to enter the first class of the Johns Hopkins Hospital
Training School for Nurses. After graduating in 1891, she
served as a head nurse at the school. In 1894, she became
the school's principal. Nutting held this position until
1907. That year, she joined the faculty of Teachers College
at Columbia University in New York City and became the
world's first professor of nursing. Nutting headed the
Department of Nursing and Health at the college from 1910
until she retired in 1925.
-
1889-1891
Entered the first class of the new Johns Hopkins Hospital
School of Nursing in Baltimore, Maryland graduating in
1891.
-
1891-1894
Head nurse in the hospital for two years and then
assistant superintendent of nurses for a year.
-
1894-1907
Became superintendent of nurses and principal of the
school.
-
1899-1907
An experimental program in hospital economics was
established at Teachers College,
Columbia
University
in New York City where Nutting taught part-time.
-
1907-1910
Left Johns
Hopkins
to teach full-time at Teachers College.
-
1910-1925
She was named head of the new department of nursing and
health.
-
1934
Named honorary president of the Florence Nightingale
International Foundation
Honored
for her outstanding contributions to nursing and nursing
education, Mary Adelaide Nutting 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.
During
her lifetime, Nutting made significant contributions to
nursing literature. She wrote A Sound Economic Basis for
Nursing, co-authored with Lavinia Dock the first two volumes
of the four-volume History of Nursing, and wrote many
articles for nursing and health periodicals.
As
principal of the Johns Hopkins Nursing program, Nutting
recognized the importance of collecting materials and books
for an historical collection for the nursing school. This
collection became the basis for the first two volumes of
A History of Nursing. Nutting, through letters,
speeches, and published works, worked to realize her dream
of seeing basic education for nurses established in
universities.
Due to her
demanding schedule, it fell to Lavina Dock, then Secretary
of the International Council of Nurses, to complete the last
two volumes of A History of Nursing. A History of
Nursing became the classic of nursing history and
by its very production denoted the rise in standing of
organized nursing.
In 1934 she was named honorary
president of the Florence Nightingale International
Foundation, and in 1944 the National League of Nursing
Education created the Mary Adelaide Nutting Medal (modeled
by
Malvina Hoffman) in her honor and awarded it to her that
year. She died in White Plains, New York, on October 3,
1948.
