Timeline of nursing history



Prior to the 16th century

16th century

  • 1517 The Protestant Reformation – the breakdown of religious orders meant that monasteries, hospitals and nursing care facilities were closed in most Protestant areas.

17th century

18th century

The 18th century was considered the Age of Reason. A lot of myths were contradicted by scientific fact.
Jamaican "doctresses" such as Cubah Cornwallis, Sarah Adams and Grace Donne, the mistress and healer to Jamaica's most successful planter, Simon Taylor, had great success using hygiene and herbs to heal the sick and wounded.

19th century

1810s

1820s

1830s

  • 1838 – The first trained nurses arrived in Sydney, they were five Irish Sisters of Charity.
  • 1839 – Nursing Society of Philadelphia.

1840s

1850s

  • 1850 – Instructional school for nurses opened by NSP.
  • 1850 – Florence Nightingale, a pioneer of modern nursing, begins her training as a nurse at the Institute of St. Vincent de Paul at Alexandria, Egypt.
  • 1851 – Florence Nightingale completed her nursing training at Kaiserwerth, Germany, a Protestant religious community with a hospital facility. She was there for approximately 3 months, and at the end, her teachers declared her trained as a nurse.
  • 1853 – Crimean War.
  • 1851 – Mary Seacole travelled to Panama, where she worked at healing sufferers from cholera and other diseases.
  • 1853 – Seacole returned to the Colony of Jamaica, where she worked at healing sufferers from yellow fever.
  • 1853 – Florence Nightingale went to Paris to study with the Sisters of Charity and was later appointed superintendent of the English General Hospitals in Turkey.
  • 1854 – The first lunatic asylum was opened in Wellington, New Zealand.
  • 1854 – Florence Nightingale appointed as the Superintendent of Nursing Staff.
  • 1854 – Florence Nightingale and 38 volunteer nurses are sent to Turkey on October 21 to assist with caring for the injured of the Crimean War.
  • 1854 – In a letter written November 15, 1854, to Dr Bowman, Florence Nightingale gives definite statistics:
  • 1855 – Mary Seacole leaves London on January 31 to establish a "British Hotel" at Balaklava in the Crimea, where she nursed wounded British soldiers using herbs and practised good hygiene.
  • 1856 – Biddy Mason is granted her freedom and moves to Los Angeles. She works as a nurse and midwife and becomes a successful businesswoman.
  • 1856– The Melbourne lying-in Hospital and Infirmary for diseases Peculiar to Women and Children established.
  • 1856 – A charitable organisation known as the Nightingale Fund for Nursing was founded in Britain, to commemorate Nightingale's work in the Crimean War.
  • 1856 – Establishment of Melbourne Lying-in Hospital and Infirmary for Diseases peculiar to Women and Children.
  • 1857 – Ellen Ranyard creates the first group of paid social workers in England and pioneers the first district nursing programme in London.
  • 1857 – The Sisters of Charity opened the first St Vincent's Hospital at Sydney's Pott's Point, Australia. Today, the St Vincent's hospitals provide a considerable proportion of public health services.
  • 1857 – Seacole published her autobiography, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands.
  • 1859 – Florence Nightingale published her views on nursing care in "Notes on Nursing". The basis of nursing practice was based on her ideas from this.

1860s

  • 1860 – In May 1860 advertisements appeared seeking young lady nurses for training, but responses were not overwhelming; however, in July 1860 15 hand-picked probationers entered the Nightingale Training School, and the pattern for modern nursing came into being.
  • 1860 – Florence Nightingale publishes "Note on Nursing: What it is and what it is not"
  • 1860 – state that the Nightingale training school for nurses in England at the St Thomas' hospital, London was established at this time.
  • 1860–1883 – As 16,000 single women emigrated to New Zealand, 582 identified their occupation as a nurse
  • 1861 – Sally Louisa Tompkins opens a hospital for Confederate soldiers in July. She is later made an officer in the army, the only woman to receive that honor.
  • 1861–1865 – The American Civil War, American Army nurses corps.
  • 1863 – The International Red Cross was established in Geneva, Switzerland, by five private individuals,
  • 1865 – Mary Tattersall, a nurse who served in the Crimean War arrived was Timaru Hospital's first matron.
  • 1867 – Jane Currie Blaikie Hoge publishes her memoirs of nursing in the Union Army, The Boys in Blue.
  • 1868 – Lucy Osburn and her four Nightingale nurses arrived at Sydney Infirmary.
  • 1868 – Sir Henry Parkes requested that Nightingale is to provide trained nurses for New South Wales.
  • 1868 – Cathinka Guldberg, who had trained as a Deaconess at Kaiserswerth, started the first nursing school in Norway at the Deaconess Institute of Christiania and became its first director.

1870s

1880s

  • 1881 – Clara Barton becomes the first president of the American Red Cross, which she founded.
  • 1881 – Created the first Portuguese Nursing School at Coimbra, Portugal.
  • 1881 – Seacole died in Paddington, London.
  • 1884 – Mary Agnes Snively, the first Ontario nurse trained according to the principles of Florence Nightingale, assumes the position of Lady Superintendent of the Toronto General Hospital's School of Nursing.
  • 1885 – Following the Hospital and Charitable Aids Act, conditions improved..
  • 1885 – The first nurse training institute is established in Japan, thanks to the pioneering work of Linda Richards.
  • 1886 – The first regular training school in India is established in Bombay, with funds provided by the governor general.
  • 1886 – The Nightingale, the first American nursing journal, is published.
  • 1886 – Spelman Seminary establishes the first nursing program specifically for African-Americans.
  • 1888 – The monthly journal The Trained Nurse begins publication in Buffalo, New York.

1890s

[image:Kate Marsden.jpg|right|thumb|150px|Kate Marsden]

20th century

1900s

1910s

1920s

1930s

World War II

1939–1945 – Military and naval nurses from numerous countries serve outside their countries.

1940s

  • 1942 – Beveridge Report recommends comprehensive health care funded through National Insurance.
  • 1943 – Mary Elizabeth Lancaster (Carnegie) is appointed the acting director of the Division of Nursing Education at Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia. Through her direction the first baccalaureate nursing program in the Commonwealth of Virginia is created.
  • 1943 – The Mid-Atlantic state of Delaware was the first to admit the African American nurses to membership as a state nurses.
  • 1944 – Ludwig Guttmanns Spinal Unit at Stoke Mandeville was formally opened on 1 February with one patient and twenty-six beds.
  • 1944 – The first baccalaureate nursing program in the Commonwealth of Virginia is created at the Hampton University School of Nursing.
  • 1948– The first baccalaureate nursing program in the State of Alabama is established at Tuskegee University under the leadership of Dr. Lillian H. Harvey, Dean.
  • 1948 – The National Health Service is launched on July 5.
  • 1949 – Mary Elizabeth Carnegie is the first black person elected to the board of the Florida Nurses Association with the right to speak and vote.
  • 1949 – Formation of College of Nursing Australia.

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

21st century

2000s

  • 2002 – The Nursing and Midwifery Council takes over from the UKCC as the UK's regulatory body.
  • 2003 – Primary Health Care framework document is released by New Zealand Ministry of Health.
  • 2004 – The American Association of Colleges of Nursing recommends that all advanced practice nurses earn a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree.
  • 2004 – The New Zealand Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act comes into full power on 18 September. This covers the requirements for nurses to have current competences relating to their scope of practice.
  • 2004 – The National Council of State Boards of Nursing initiated its Nursing License Compact which allows an RN who holds a license in one Compact state, to work in another Compact state without having that state's license.
  • 2007 – ICN Conference is held in Yokohama
  • 2008 – Courtney Lyder becomes the first male minority dean of a nursing school in the United States.
  • 2008 – National Council for State Boards of Nursing issues final report: "NCSBN Consensus Model for APRN Regulation: Licensure, Accreditation, Certification & Education".
  • 2009 – Carnegie Foundation releases the results of its study of nursing education, "Educating Nurses: A Call for Radical Transformation".
  • 2010 – Institute for the Future of Nursing releases evidence-based recommendations to lead change for improved health care.
  • 2010 – A national registration for all nurses and midwives came into force in Australia in July.

Britain and Commonwealth

  • Bostridge. Mark Florence Nightingale: The Making of an Icon
  • Helmstadter, Carol, and Judith Godden, eds. Nursing before Nightingale, 1815–1899
  • Middleton, J. NHS nursing in the 1950s. NursingTimes.net. Retrieved from http://www.nursingtimes.net/nhs-nursing-in-the-1950s/461928.article
  • Nelson, Sioban, and Ann Marie Rafferty, eds. Notes on Nightingale: The Influence and Legacy of a Nursing Icon
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U.S.

  • Campbell, D'Ann Women at War with America: Private Lives in a Patriotic Era ch 2, on military nurses in World War Two
  • Judd, Deborah A History of American Nursing: Trends and Eras
  • Kalisch, Philip Arthur, and Beatrice J. Kalisch The Advance of American Nursing ; retitled as American Nursing: A History
  • Sarnecky, Mary T. A history of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps
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