Description

Mary Adelaide Nutting (1 November 1858 - 3 October 1948) was born in Waterloo, Quebec. She was a graduate of the first class of the Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Nursing in 1891. After graduating, she remained at the Johns Hopkins Hospital as a head nurse for two years then superintendent.

She expanded the curriculum in the school of nursing from 2 to 3 years, added a preclinical training period, limited the number of hours nursing students could work, and established a professional and historical library at the school. With Lavinia Dock, she wrote the multi-volume History of Nursing (1907-1912). She also wrote numerous articles, which were collected in A Sound Economic Basis for Nursing (1926).

She helped found and held leadership positions in all the major nursing professional organizations, as well as the American Journal of Nursing. In the aftermath of the Spanish American War, Nutting worked toward the establishment of the Army Nurse Corps. When Maryland passed legislation for the registration of nursing school graduates in 1904, Nutting was the first nurse registered in the state in recognition of her leadership in that effort.

In 1907, she left Johns Hopkins to become professor of institutional administration at Columbia Teachers College and was the first woman to hold a professorship at Columbia University and the first university professor of nursing in the world. She established a graduate nursing education program and led Columbia's Nursing Education Department until her retirement in 1925.