The Army Nurse Corps

The Spanish-American War began in 1898 as the conflict between Cubans battling for their island nation’s independence from Spain intensified. After newspaper articles described the atrocities inflicted on the Cuban rebels and then the sinking of the American battleship the USS Maine in Havana harbor, public pressure mounted for the United States to get involved. (https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/spanish-american-war#causes-remember-the-maine)

Again, war trumpeted the need for nurses. Beyond injuries and deaths, illnesses such as yellow fever, malaria, and other tropical diseases afflicted many soldiers. Fifteen hundred contract nurses were recruited to help stem the tide of these epidemics. This urgent need further justified the call for a permanent national branch of female nurses to be established.

As it was, a very limited number of nurses were serving in a variety of places in the States and in the Philippines at that time. By 1901, through an act of Congress, a permanent Army Nurse Corps was established, followed in 1908 by the Navy Nurse Corps. In 1914 at the beginning of WWI there were 410 Army nurses. By 1918 when the war ended, there were 21,460 nurses in the Army, with 10,000 serving overseas. That year the Army inaugurated its own Nurse Training Program at Vassar College. The Army Nurse Training Program—a 3-year course of study—became a model for the rest of the country. Despite its success, by 1933, the Army Nurse Training Program closed due to financial shortages occasioned by the Great Depression. It would resume with economic recovery and the onset of World War II. (Army Nurse Corps Association, History 1901-1940, https://e-anca.org/History/ANC-Eras/1901-1940.)