Mary Sewell Gardner
Mary Sewall Gardner
was born in Newton, Massachusetts on February 5th, 1871. Her mother died when she was only four and
her father remarried a woman who was a physician.
Most of Mary’s early education was in local private schools
but she went to Miss Porter’s School in Farmington in her teen years. In 1890 she returned home and spent many
years nursing her invalid stepmother and doing work in the community. When she was thirty she attended the Newport
Rhode Island Hospital Training School knowing that she wanted to become a
physician, probably inspired by her step mother. When she completed a four year
program she became superintendent of nurses in the Providence District Nursing
Association. Her leadership led the
organization to become a model for other district nursing associations. She implemented organized, regular meetings,
an efficient record keeping system and introduced uniforms.
In 1912 Mary and another nurse founded the National
Organization of Public Health Nursing, serving as its president. She helped
create a monthly periodical Public Health Nursing, which has been revised twice
and translated into several languages and long considered a classic. Mary contributed many editorials and
scholarly articles.
When World War I broke out she took a leave of absence and
went to Italy where she served as chief nurse on the American Red Cross
Tuberculosis Commission. She also
established training programs for Italian women who wished to become nurses.
She received an honorary Master’s Degree from Brown
University in Rhode Island and received the Walter Burns Saunders Medal for
distinguished service to the nursing profession. She has been inducted into the American Nursing
Association Hall of Fame.
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