The Civil War and the Rise of Nurse Training Schools

There were no nurse training schools at the time of the Civil War, although during the War Army hospitals were established in each state supported by many volunteers who learned on the job. One of the most remarkable volunteers was Harriet Tubman. Tubman, though born a slave, escaped to Philadelphia and then conducted approximately thirteen missions via the Underground Railroad to rescue other enslaved men and women. During the Civil War she successfully nursed the sick and wounded in various Northern cities with home remedies and herbs (Clinton 2004, pp. 186-87). Mary Ann Bickerdyke, another outstanding volunteer nurse, impressed General Grant with her administrative skill and with his endorsement was responsible for establishing 300 field hospitals for Union soldiers during the War. Both Tubman and Bickerdyke improved the care of Union soldiers by implementing cleanliness and sanitary practices. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Tubman) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Bickerdyke)

Various influential writers and thinkers, including Dorothea Dix, came forward after the Civil War to arouse public interest in the work of nurses at hospitals. Clara Barton had been a volunteer during the War, and her tireless efforts after the War evolved into the American Red Cross. She is not only credited with changing the opinion of women’s work but also lending her support to the establishment of nurse training schools.

Louisa May Alcott had been another volunteer in the Union Army Medical Corp. In her book Hospital Sketches, based on letters she had written home, she highlighted the work of nurses and revealed the terrible conditions in the military hospitals. Alcott aroused public sentiment and concern through her writings. (https://wikipedia.org/Louisa May Alcott) Walt Whitman, the poet, had worked as a volunteer nurse in a Union Military Hospital in Washington, D.C. He memorialized the nurses and dying soldiers in his poem “The Wound-Dresser,” published in Drum Taps (1865). (Glimpse details of his experience posted at Library of Congress website. https://blogs.loc.gov/catbird/2019/04/wound-dressing-walt-whitman-in-washington/)

Writers such as Alcott and Whitman as well as the commendable work of the many nurse volunteers helped change the largely negative attitudes of doctors toward nurses. Prior to the Civil War, women employed in hospitals were uneducated and often criminals or prostitutes. Through many women’s groups and others touched by the work of nurses in the Civil War, efforts were made to establish nurse training schools. Samuel D. Gross M.D., who was elected president of the American Medical Association (AMA) in 1868, strongly endorsed the formation of training schools for nurses. (“Report of the Committee on the Training of Nurses,” Transactions of the AMA, 20: 161-174.) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_D._Gross)

Women’s Hospital of Philadelphia, which employed mostly women physicians, started the first nurse training school in 1872, followed shortly thereafter by New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston, where again the medical staff was mostly composed of women. By 1873 three more nurse training schools were opened: Bellevue Hospital in New York City, Connecticut Training School at New Haven, and Boston Training School at Massachusetts General Hospital. By 1883 there were 35 nurse training schools across the country and by 1900, just 17 years later, that number had exploded to 432 training schools.