Welcome to this episode of Nursing EDge Unscripted Saga where we journey through the history of nursing education using stories that connect the past to the present and then our future as we reimagine our teaching, learning, and scholarship. It is often said that the past teaches us about the present to study history is to study change.
This year Saga gives voice to nursing through the words of our early nurse leaders who organized a discipline in carved out systems to formalize the education of nurses throughout the United States. In Their Own Words illuminates the visionary work of NLN pathfinders who question traditional curriculum paradigms and in the process co-created standards for nursing education to build the
discipline of nursing. For the next two months, we will focus on the evolution of nursing education in the establishment of curriculum standards and pedagogical excellence for nursing education's early leader pathfinders. It is the story that belongs to the National League for Nursing, a story about strong leaders who defied tradition in braved external opposition to co-create a
foundation for modern nursing education. This month we will focus on accomplishments to reform nursing education and nursing curricula during the first decade of organized Nursing from 1893 to 1900. In the following month, our focus will be transformative accomplishments during the early 20th century. To fully capture the spirit of this evolution, we will tell the story through the words of nursing education's early leaders documented from the proceedings of NLN annual
conventions from 1893 to 1952. These publications are part of the NLN Archives collection currently housed at the Bates Center for the History of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania. And the story begins...first training schools opened in America in 1873. By 1890 there were 35 schools and 1500 students. The value of trained nurses caring for the sick was recognized by hospitals, which welcomed the free labor of student nurses.
But training schools were being opened without consideration for standards even though they were loosely based on the Nightingale model. Curricula lack rigor and consistency. The stage was set for the development of organized nursing education
at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. Ms. Isabel Hampton, superintendent of the Johns Hopkins Training School in Baltimore, chaired a group of superintendents who set about laying the foundation for a new association, the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses. This was the first association of nurses in the United States it would become the National League of Nursing Education in 1912 and the National League for Nursing in 1952.
During the early years, the society faced opposition from physicians who objected to nursing's growing self-governance. The belief, at the time, was that nursing did not require formal training or education. By forming the Society, the superintendents collectively worked to change that reality. They believed in power through organization and a collective vision.
As early as 1895, at the second annual convention, the focus of the proceedings was on curriculum reform and the development of a uniform curriculum for training schools. This was revolutionary as a superintendent sought to challenge decades of physician-controlled servitude-based training where student nurses worked on average 14 hours
a day with minimal instruction. Miss Mary Agnes Snively, Superintendent of the Toronto General Hospital Training School, addressed the need for educational reform and spoke passionately about the hypocrisy of nursing training. In her words: At the same convention, Isabel Hampton, now Mrs. Hampton Robb, presented the radical idea that nursing training should be extended to three years from the traditional two years and that student nurse daily practical work should
be reduced to eight hours a day. In her words: These radical reformers had the foresight to challenge conventional beliefs about how women work and are educated. They paved the way for standardization in nursing education. In part two, we will explore the changes that occurred rapidly within the next decade. And so the Saga continues and may our Saga continue as we bring to a close this episode of Nursing EDge Unscripted Saga. Thank you for joining us