March 6, 2019 | Celebrating Women’s History Month

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March 6, 2019
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Dear Colleagues,
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Colleagues, I recently learned that Women's History Month began as a weeklong celebration in California in 1978, timed to coincide with International Women's Day. A consortium of women's groups and historians successfully lobbied for national recognition, and President Carter issued the first Presidential Proclamation designating the week of March 8 Women's History Week with these words: "Too often...women were unsung and sometimes their contributions went unnoticed. But the achievements, leadership, courage, strength, and love of the women who built America were as vital as that of the men whose names we know so well." March has been Women's History Month officially since 1995, and this year the theme is "Visionary Women: Champions of Peace & Nonviolence." We probably owe a shout out to Mrs. Carter, who is one of those visionary women.

Those of us who are fascinated with nursing history are challenged to tell our story, as nurses are among those whose contributions so often go unnoticed. But for Women’s History Month 2019, I worked with others at the NLN to name four nurses, from our past and our present, who exemplify our leadership, courage, and strength, and we have posted their photographs in our lobby. There are many more we could have chosen.

  • We decided to start with Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross. Barton was a teacher who founded a school for the children of mill workers in Massachusetts. When a male principal was hired to run the school, she moved to Washington, DC to work for the US Patent Office and was here when troops began to flood the city in the early days of the Civil War. She began a pattern of collecting supplies and visiting field hospitals and battlefields to nurse the troops, and, after the war, she made it her mission to help locate missing soldiers. Barton provided nursing and humanitarian assistance in Europe during the Franco-Prussian War and set the precedent that the American Red Cross will respond to natural disasters in addition to war. Her story is on view in the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum right here in Washington, DC.
  • Margaret Higgins Sanger enrolled as a nurse probationer at White Plains Hospital in 1900 but gave up her education when she married in 1902. Later she worked as a visiting nurse in the slums of New York City, meeting women who underwent frequent childbirth, miscarriages, and self-induced abortions for lack of information on how to avoid unwanted pregnancy. Her campaign to challenge governmental censorship of contraceptive information through confrontational actions led to arrests and jail time and hunger strikes, but the birth control movement finally won a victory in 1918 when a judge for the New York Court of Appeals issued a ruling that allowed doctors to prescribe contraception. After decades of tumultuous activism, Sanger founded the International Planned Parenthood Federation in 1952.
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  • Born in Panama, Ildaura Murillo-Rohde began her nursing career in the largely Hispanic populated city of San Antonio, where she found there were few Hispanic nurses for the community. That prompted her to obtain a BSN in psychiatric mental health nursing and master’s and doctorate degrees at New York University. She served as professor and dean of nursing at the State University of New York in Brooklyn, and in the 1970s, secured a federal position reviewing research and educational grants. An active member of the American Nurses Association, she noted the lack of Latina nurses in academic settings, research, and public policy and was instrumental in the founding of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses (NAHN) in 1975. Sadly, she died too young, in 2010. The Dr. Ildaura Murillo-Rohde Award for Education Excellence by a Hispanic RN is presented to honor NAHN members who have distinguished themselves in any scholarship area and/or nursing education. I was privileged to know Ildaura and can personally speak of her passion for nursing.
  • Eddie Bernice Johnson, who has represented Texas's 30th congressional district in the US House of Representatives since 1993, was the first registered nurse elected to Congress. Born and raised in Waco, she left Texas, which had segregated schools, to attend college in Indiana and received a diploma in nursing in 1956. She eventually earned a bachelor's in nursing and a master's of public administration and served as chief psychiatric nurse at the Dallas VA Hospital. She also served three terms in the Texas Senate. In 2012, Johnson introduced the "Broadening Participation in STEM Education Act" to authorize the director of the National Science Foundation to award grants to increase the number of students from underrepresented minority groups receiving degrees in STEM and expand the number of faculty members from underrepresented minority groups at colleges and universities. She is a member of the House Nursing Caucus and a good friend of the NLN.

    • These are some highlights of nursing history for National Women's History Month. We chose to recognize women who founded institutions that remain essential today (the tornado that visited Alabama only days before is a testament to the need for the American Red Cross); one who enriched nursing through her vision for inclusivity; and another who, as a US Representative, helps us address issues that impact the nursing profession and the health of our nation. All four women touch our ability to give significant quality care to the people we serve. They are women who remind us what an honor and responsibility it is to be a woman.

    For a better understanding of issues of public policy important to nursing and nursing education, let me turn now to the brand new NLN Public Policy Agenda 2019 – 2020, recently approved by the NLN Board of Governors and posted online. Organized in the areas of Education, Workforce, Access, and Diversity, this document serves as a blueprint for advocacy and action according to our core values of integrity, caring, diversity, and excellence. As always, I encourage you and your students to use the NLN Advocacy Action Center to take an active role in molding the policy issues facing nursing education today. By the way, a link on the Advocacy Action Center will help you invite your US Representative to join Rep. Johnson as a member of the House Nursing Caucus. Congress holds the purse strings for federal programs that impact nursing education, and educating our representatives is critical. I will tell you more about NLN plans for public policy advocacy in my next Member Update.

    Before I close, a final word about women's history. We are about to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees American women the right to vote. Centennial events are being planned for Washington and around the country. Let's remember the struggle involved in obtaining the franchise, never take our vote for granted, and never let anyone take our vote away.

    All the best,

    signature
    Beverly Malone, PhD, RN, FAAN
    Chief Executive Officer

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