Top Famous Nurses Who Made History

The history of nursing has been a fascinating series of twists and turns. Often relegated to a secondary position within the medical community, many nurses have proven to be crusaders for change, impacting history. These nurses, now mentioned in the history books, changed the world for the better. Here are ten of them.

Top Most Famous Nurses in the History

• Mother Teresa

Born in the Ottoman Empire in 1910 as Anjeze Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, Mother Teresa was determined to care for the most oppressed and downtrodden people of India. Trading the traditional nun’s habit for a simple white sari, she organized a dedicated force of nun nurses to provide healthcare for the slums of Calcutta. Her most famous patients were the “untouchable” lepers that no one else dared to approach.

Though she worked for the Catholic Church, the care she provided was clearly non-sectarian, with nuns reading from the Quran to suffering Muslims and delivering water from the Sacred Ganges to dying Hindus. Currently, 4,500 nuns work in 133 countries, providing compassionate, non-denominational care to those who would otherwise go unnoticed.

• Mary Breckinridge

Mary Breckinridge had a very different approach to women’s reproductive health than Margaret. While serving as a nurse for the American Expeditionary Force in WWI, Mary met with European midwives. She quickly realized that their approach to women’s reproductive health could meet the needs of women living in the most remote parts of the U.S.

She returned to the United States, mounted a horse, and began providing prenatal and childbirth care to women in the most remote parts of the Appalachian Mountains, allowing patients to pay whatever they could in whatever way they could, including chickens or trade. Soon, enough nurses followed in her footsteps to establish the Frontier Nursing Service in Kentucky, an organisation that still exists today.

• Margaret Sanger

Margaret Sanger was a dangerous woman. Convinced that her mother’s eighteen pregnancies had contributed to the woman’s early death Margaret went on the warpath. In a time where the Comstock Law declared any information on reproductive health to be obscene, she gave public lectures, published circulars and magazines, smuggled diaphragms into the country, and provided care to women after back alley abortions gone wrong.

Margaret was arrested in 1916 for this criminal spree. She would be found guilty, but an appeals court ruled that trained medical personnel could legally discuss and distribute women's health issues and birth control. Margaret would go on to found the now-famous Planned Parenthood.

• Lillian Wald

Lillian Wald was horrified by how we treated poor immigrants. After being called in 1893 to save the life of a woman who had been abandoned by a doctor because she could not afford to pay him Lillian founded the first organization of “Public Health Nurses” in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

These public health nurses provided subsidized health care to immigrants, the destitute, and anyone else who couldn’t afford healthcare otherwise. Her original organization, the Henry Street Settlement continues this work to this day.

• Mary Eliza Mahoney

Mary Eliza Mahoney wouldn’t take no for an answer. A black woman in the post-Civil War era U.S., she worked at the New England Hospital for Women and Children for 15 years before finally being allowed to join its nursing school. She graduated in 1905 and began a career as a well-known and respected private care nurse.

Her recognition allowed black nurses to receive formal training, run a medical facility (the Howard Orphan Asylum), and join what is now known as the American Nurses Association. In addition, she was one of the first women in Boston to register to vote in 1920.

• Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale was for the British but Clara Barton was for the Americans. Already well known as a nurse and a traveler, Florence traveled to the Crimea with a group of women volunteers to provide care for wounded British soldiers.

Horrified by conditions in the field, she lobbied for and helped to create the first modern field hospitals, emphasizing regulations covering sanitary conditions and care, reducing fatalities of wounded soldiers from over 40% to around 2%. After the war she would found the world’s first formal nursing school for women (now part of King’s College of London).

• Clara Barton

Clara Barton is a well-known historical figure. She began nursing as a ten-year-old after an older brother's injuries necessitated frequent care. Clara was already prone to taking on jobs traditionally held by men (and demanding equal pay), so when the Civil War broke out in the United States, she dove into the traditionally male role of nurse, working directly on the front lines of the battle.

During one battle, a bullet ripped through her dress (but missed her) and killed the man she was treating. She would eventually be chosen to establish the first Red Cross branch in the United States.