# American Nurses Association Hall of Fame

The American Nurses Association Hall of Fame or the ANA Hall of Fame is an award which recognizes the historical contributions to nursing in the United States.

## History

In 1974, in preparation for the United States Bicentennial, the American Nurses Association (ANA) created a seven-member committee to recognize the dedication and achievements of professional nurses in a Hall of Fame. Fifteen inaugural women were selected as inductees and the committee recommended that the nomination process and inductions become a permanent vehicle for recognition. In 1982, National Nurse's Day was proclaimed by President Ronald Reagan to be celebrated on May 6 and in conjunction with the celebration, the ANA at their annual convention, inducted six more nurses. The ANA board approved periodic addition of members thereafter, inducting new members in 1984, 1986, and 1996. In 1996, the criteria changed so that inductees did not have to be deceased and that inductions occur biennially.

## Criteria

The criteria for induction include that the nominees must be leaders in health, social or political policy which have had a sustaining impact on nursing in the United States. All candidates, unless they were working prior to 1873, must have completed a formal registered nursing program. Contributions to the field could have occurred locally or internationally, but must demonstrate their enduring value beyond the honoree's lifetime. Since 1996, inductees may be living or deceased.

## Inductees

ANA Hall of Fame :
| Name | Birth–Death | Year | Area of achievement |
| Dorothea Lynde Dix | (1802-1887) | 1976 | mental health advocate and Civil War Superintendent of Army Nurses |
| Lavinia Lloyd Dock | (1858-1956) | 1976 | textbook writer and author of standard nurse's manual of drugs |
| Martha Minerva Franklin | (1870-1968) | 1976 | African American nurse organizer and founder of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses |
| Annie Warburton Goodrich | (1866-1954) | 1976 | dean of the Army School of Nursing and later dean of the first nursing program at Yale University |
| Stella Goostray | (1886-1969) | 1976 | nursing scholar, author, and educator |
| Clara Louise Maass | (1876-1901) | 1976 | volunteer in medical experiments for yellow fever |
| Mary Eliza Mahoney | (1845-1926) | 1976 | first African American professional nurse in the U.S. |
| Mary Adelaide Nutting | (1858-1948) | 1976 | the first nurse appointed as a university professor |
| Sophia French Palmer | (1853-1920) | 1976 | co-founder and first editor of the American Journal of Nursing |
| Linda Anne Judson Richards | (1841-1930) | 1976 | first trained nurse in the U.S. |
| Isabel Adams Hampton Robb | (1860-1910) | 1976 | first president of the American Nurses Association |
| Margaret H. Sanger | (1879-1966) | 1976 | opened the first birth control clinic in the United States |
| Isabel Maitland Stewart | (1878-1963) | 1976 | leader in the development of nursing curriculum |
| Adah Belle Samuel Thoms | (1870-1943) | 1976 | director of the Lincoln School for Nurses and president of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses for seven years |
| Lillian D. Wald | (1867-1940) | 1976 | was an early advocate for Public health nursing, and advocated to have nurses in public schools. She founded the Henry Street Settlement in New York City and The Henry Street Settlement Visiting Nurse Service, which eventually became the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. |
| Mary Breckinridge | (1881–1965) | 1982 | founder of the Frontier Nursing Service |
| Mary E. P. Davis | (1840-1924) | 1982 | co-founder/manager of The American Journal of Nursing |
| Jane Arminda Delano | (1862-1919) | 1982 | founder of the American Red Cross Nursing Service |
| Mary May Roberts | (1877-1959) | 1982 | editor for 28 years of The American Journal of Nursing |
| Julia Catherine Stimson | (1881-1948) | 1982 | superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps |
| Shirley Carew Titus | (1892-1967) | 1982 | nursing labor organizer |
| Helen Lathrop Bunge | (1906-1970) | 1984 | executive officer of the Institute of Research and Services at Teachers College Nursing Education division |
| Margaret Baggett Dolan | (1914-1974) | 1984 | 19th president of the American Nurses Association |
| Katharine Jane Densford | (1890-1978) | 1984 | president of the American Nurses Association, vice-president of the International Council of Nurses |
| Ruth Benson Freeman | (1906-1982) | 1984 | public health nurse educator |
| Alma Elizabeth Gault | (1891-1981) | 1984 | dean of the African American Meharry Medical College School of Nursing |
| Janet M. Geister | (1885-1964) | 1984 | researcher, conducted governmental studies of children's day care centers |
| Lydia Eloise Hall | (1906-1969) | 1984 | long-term and chronic disease control theorist |
| Estelle Massey Osborne | (1901-1981) | 1984 | first black nurse to earn a master's degree in the U.S. |
| Frances Reiter | (1904-1977) | 1984 | first dean of the Graduate School of Nursing at New York Medical College |
| Emilie Gleason Sargent | (1894-1977) | 1984 | executive director of the Detroit Visiting Nursing Association for 40 years |
| Anne Hervey Strong | (1876-1925) | 1984 | director of the Simmons College School of Public Health Nursing |
| Julia Charlotte Thompson | (1907-1972) | 1984 | director of the American Nurses Association and its first full-time lobbyist |
| Ellwynne Mae Vreeland | (1909-1971) | 1984 | developed the first nationwide extramural federal nursing research program |
| Mary Berenice Beck | (1890-1960) | 1986 | earned the first nursing education doctorate of the Catholic University of America |
| Adda Eldredge | (1865-1955) | 1986 | instrumental in securing passage of an Illinois nursing practice act and became license holder #1 |
| Mary Sewall Gardner | (1871-1961) | 1986 | author of the first text on Public Health Nursing in the U.S. |
| Elizabeth Sterling Soule | (1884-1972) | 1986 | established the Department of Nursing at the University of Washington |
| Effie J. Taylor | (1874-1970) | 1986 | pioneer in psychiatric and mental health nursing |
| Florence Guinness Blake | (1907-1983) | 1996 | advanced education in pediatric nursing |
| Florence Aby Blanchfield | (1882-1971) | 1996 | first woman to receive a military commission in the regular army of the U.S. |
| Dorothy Cornelius | (1918-1992) | 1996 | only nurse to serve as president of the American Nurses Association, the American Journal of Nursing Company and for the International Council of Nurses |
| Virginia A. Henderson | (1897-1996) | 1996 | theorist and researcher—authored one of the most definitive descriptions of nursing |
| Katherine J. Hoffman | (1910-1984) | 1996 | first nurse to earn a doctorate in the state of Washington |
| Anna Caroline Maxwell | (1851-1929) | 1996 | trained nurses for the Spanish–American War and spurred the establishment of the Army Nurse Corps |
| Lucille Elizabeth Notter | (1907-1993) | 1996 | co-creator and first full-time editor of Nursing Research |
| Agnes K. Ohlson | (1902-1991) | 1996 | spearheaded standardization of nurse licensing requirements throughout the U.S. |
| Mary D. Osborne | (1875-1946) | 1996 | pioneering maternity nurse |
| Sara Elizabeth Parsons | (1864-1949) | 1996 | founded nurse training schools to advance psychiatric nursing |
| Elizabeth Kerr Porter | (1894-1989) | 1996 | nurse educator and nursing rights advocate |
| Martha Elizabeth Rogers | (1914-1994) | 1996 | developed the theory of the Science of Unitary Human Beings |
| Mabel Keaton Staupers | (1890-1989) | 1996 | advocate for racial equality in the nursing profession |
| Florence S. Wald | (1917-2008) | 1996 | founder of the first hospice program in the U.S. |
| Mary Opal Wolanin | (1910-1997) | 1996 | expert in eldercare who advocated for inclusion of gerontological information in nursing curricula |
| Annie Damer | (1858-1915) | 1998 | president of the first Board of Nursing Examiners |
| Clara Dutton Noyes | (1869-1936) | 1998 | World War I director of the Red Cross' Bureau of Nursing |
| Hildegard Peplau | (1909-1999) | 1998 | pioneer advocate for patient-nurse relationships and psychiatric nursing |
| Dorothy E. Reilly | (1920-1996) | 1998 | scholar and educator, who focused on the development of nursing education |
| Dorothy M. Smith | (1913-1997) | 1998 | founding dean of the University of Florida College of Nursing |
| Mary Elizabeth Carnegie | (1916-2008) | 2000 | author, educator and advocate for removal of racial barriers in the nursing profession |
| Signe Skott Cooper | (1921-) | 2000 | Developed the concept of continuing nursing education |
| Maggie Jacobs | (1943-1992) | 2000 | instrumental in the development of the New York City municipal health care system and advocate for health services for the poor |
| Undine Sams | (1919-1999) | 2000 | implemented integration of the Florida Nurses Association |
| Margretta Madden Styles | (1930-2005) | 2000 | architect of the 1970s comprehensive study of nursing credentialing, which established national standards of nursing practices |
| Sadie Heath Cabaniss | (1863-1921) | 2002 | developed the first nurses' training school in Virginia |
| Harriet Patience Dame | (1815-1900) | 2002 | her service during the Civil War inspired Congress provide pensions to battlefield and hospital nurses of the conflict |
| Veronica Margaret Driscoll | (1926-1994) | 2002 | collective bargaining and labor organizer for New York nurses |
| Mary Lewis Wyche | (1858-1936) | 2002 | advocate of regulation of nursing practice and standards in North Carolina |
| Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail | (1903-1981) | 2002 | instrumental in modernizing the Indian Health Service and eliminate abuses in care provided to Native Americans |
| Luther Christman | (1915-2011) | 2004 | first man to hold the position of dean at a nursing school |
| Imogene King | (1923-2007) | 2004 | pioneering nurse theorist |
| Hattie M. Bessent | (?-2015) | 2008 | first African American nurse to receive a PhD at Florida A&M University and first tenured African American nurse at the University of Florida |
| Nettie Birnbach | (?) | 2010 | president of the New York State Nurses Association |
| Claire M. Fagin | (1926-) | 2010 | first woman to serve as a university president with an Ivy League university, when she was named interim president of the University of Pennsylvania |
| John F. Garde | (1935-2009) | 2010 | pioneering nurse anesthetist |
| Ada K. Jacox | (?) | 2010 | researcher and educator specializing in pain management |
| John Devereaux Thompson | (1917-1992) | 2010 | influenced policy on Medicare reimbursement procedures and a pioneer in functional hospital architecture and design |
| Faye Glenn Abdellah | (1919-) | 2012 | first woman to serve as U.S. Deputy Surgeon General |
| Josephine Dolan | (1913-2004) | 2012 | nursing historian and first faculty member at the University of Connecticut School of Nursing |
| Eleanor C. Lambertsen | (1916-1998) | 2012 | pioneered the concept of interdisciplinary team nursing to improve patient care |
| Mary Lee Mills | (1912-2010) | 2012 | chief nursing officer of the U.S. Public Health Service and consultant on national health systems to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare |
| Margaret D. Sovie | (1933-2002) | 2012 | educator and researcher who helped establish criteria for nurse recognition programs |
| Russell E. Tranbarger | (?) | 2012 | administrator, educator and advocate for male nursing |
| Barbara Thoman Curtis | (1938-2015) | 2014 | organized the first political action committee for the ANA |
| Pearl McIver | (1893-1976) | 2014 | chief nurse of the U. S. Public Health Service |
| Mary Ellen Patton | (?) | 2014 | nursing labor advocate for improving labor conditions of health service workers |
| Robert V. Piemonte | (1934-2020), | 2014 | first male nursing EdD recipient to head the National Student Nurses' Association |
| Jessie M. Scott | (1915-2009) | 2014 | pushed for passage and helped implement the Nurse Training Act |
| Muriel Poulin | (?) | 2016 | after serving in numerous international posts, established the first nursing master's degree program in Spain |
| Patricia Messmer | (?) | 2016 | chair of the Nurses Charitable Trust |
| M. Louise Fitzpatrick | (?) – 2017 | 2018 | a visionary leader and champion for the nursing profession, passionate about international health care and nursing education. |
| Barbara Drew | (?) | 2018 | cardiovascular nursing research bringing valuable improvements to patient care and nursing scholarship |
| Rose Constantino | (?) | 2020 | |
| Jeri Milstead | (?) | 2020 | |
| Tim Porter-O'Grady | (?) | 2020 | |
| Anne P. Manton | (?) | 2022 | |
| Barbara L. Nichols | (1939-) | 2022 | |