Sacred Twenty The Sacred Twenty were a group of exclusively female nurses who , during World War I , were the first female members to ever formally serve in the United States Navy representing the Nurse Corps . Officially formed in 1908 , the Sacred Twenty made broad contributions during wartime , not only including training of field nurses and disease treatment , but also providing education programs for nurses abroad and professional publications to the field of nursing . History . Shortly after the formation of the Army Nurse Corps in 1901 , the Navy ' s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery ( BUMED ) campaigned to create a similar organization for itself . Congress officially permitted the creation of the organization on 13 May 1908 , where twenty women were selected as the first members . The women were required to be between the ages of 22 and 44 , to be citizens of the United States , and also could not be married . They were initially headed by Esther Voorhees Hasson , a former member of the Army Nurse Corps , who was appointed as superintendent . Hasson and the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery collaboratively selected the other 19 nurses , who were chosen from various nursing schools and had training across a broad range of nursing skills . The Sacred Twenty were assigned to the U . S . Naval Hospital in Washington , D . C for initial training and were subsequently assigned to hospitals in Washington , New York , Norfolk , and Annapolis for supervised duty . Assignments were later expanded to many other cities including Philadelphia and Puget Sound . Overseas , U . S . naval hospitals were built in Guam , Samoa , and The Philippines where some of the Sacred Twenty served . The navy did not provide room or board for them , and so the nurses rented their own accommodations and provided their own meals . In 1910 , Superintendent Hasson noted the dwindling applications from qualified candidates to the Nurse Corps , and subsequently pushed for initiatives such as better pay and reducing the cost of applications by foregoing an in - person interview and replacing it with a written essay requirement . Initially , hospital administration was wary about the idea of introducing female nurses into settings without female patients because they believed they may serve to distract male patients . Consequently , existing male nurses , who had not received sufficient training , performed most of the nursing tasks . Some years after the Sacred Twenty ' s formation in 1908 , however , female nurses began to champion this role in the Hospital Corps , even abroad . Service . In addition to administering medical care on the battlefield and training of local nurses to do the same , the Sacred Twenty also implemented a number of other programs during their service . For instance , Chief Nurse Elizabeth Leonhardt , who arrived at the Naval Hospital in Guam 1911 , not only worked with women and children , but also created a training school for local Chamorro women . Six women attended the first class , which was later expanded due to interest . Later classes included discussion of tuberculosis cases and training and teaching of massage therapy . Some training in midwifery was also implemented by Leonhardt , in part due to her own perceived problems with native approaches to treatment . However , some have noted that these concerns may have been motivated by racial - and gender - based discrimination towards women in the tropics . Chief Nurse Beatrice Bowman , who arrived in 1916 , also taught courses in midwifery and practical nursing , which later allowed trained nurses to provide more complete healthcare to the villages they were assigned to . Later , when Bowman became Superintendent , she implemented mandatory inspections of all naval hospitals in order to create a more consistent standard of nursing and to gain firsthand experience of what challenges different hospitals and nurses faced . Bowman is also noted to have pushed for Navy nurses to continue their education and keep up - to - date with developments in medicine by taking postgraduate courses . Superintendent Lenah Higbee focused on publicizing and enhancing the reputation of the Nurse Corps . She often published articles in professional journals such as the American Journal of Nursing and also encouraged nurses to contribute as well . Members . The Sacred Twenty included three Nurse Corps Superintendents and twelve chief nurses . They were :