Irena Stanisława Sendler was born in Warsaw, Poland, and grew up in Otwock, a town with a vibrant Jewish community. As a child, she saw her father, a doctor and humanitarian, treat the poor for free. After he died, when she was seven years old, she and her mother returned to Warsaw. In 1927, she attended the University of Warsaw, studying law before changing to Polish literature. As a student, she joined the Union of Polish Democratic Youth and became involved with the Communist Party of Poland. She advocated against the ghetto-bench system, which assigned Jewish students to designated sections of the lecture halls, and she defaced the “non-Jewish” identification on her grade card. Her public protest resulted in her suspension from the university, and she could not find a position in the Warsaw school system because of her lefties views. In 1931, at 21, she married Mieczysław Sendler and found a job as a social worker in the legal department for the Mother and Child Assistance Division of the Free Polish University. In 1935, she began to work in the Warsaw Department of Social Welfare and Public Health, where she was in charge of the canteens that assisted people in need. In 1939, after the Nazis invaded Poland, she and her colleagues used the canteens to help the oppressed Jews by providing them with food, medicine, and clothing. By the end of the following year, all of Warsaw’s Jewish population, about 400,000 people, were forced to move into the small area of the ghetto. The density, poor hygienic conditions, and lack of food and medical supplies resulted in the death of hundreds of people every day from disease and starvation. As social workers, Sendler and her colleagues had a special permit to enter the ghetto and inspect its sanitary conditions. Once in, she established contact with the Zegota – the Underground Council to Aid Jews and brought in medications, food, and clothing. Soon, she began to help people who managed to escape the ghetto and smuggle out many babies and small children, especially orphans. Her actions were done at huge risk since any kind of assistance to Jews was punishable by death. In 1943, 33 years old Sendler was appointed director of Zegota’s Department for the Care of Jewish Children, and alongside her 12 associates, she enhanced smuggling operations. They had various ways to smuggle the children out of the ghetto, hidden in an ambulance, carried in caskets and potato sacks, or in underground tunnels. On the Aryan side, the children received new catholic identities and were kept with non-Jewish families and convents. Sendler wanted to preserve the children’s true identity so they could reunite with their families after the war, so she kept detailed lists of the children’s birth names, Christian names, and current locations. She hid the records in a jar in the yard of one of her friends. On October 20th, 1943, she was arrested by the Gestapo and was sent to Pawiak Prison. To get her to reveal information about her associates, she was beaten and tortured. She was sentenced to death, but underground activists bribed the prison’s guards, and they released her in February 1944. In the following month, she resumed her activities, which she continued until the Nazis left Poland. The group is estimated to have rescued about 2,500 children, 400 of whom she saved. After the war, she and her associates, together with the Zegota organization, tried to track down their families. Unfortunately, only a few parents were found since only 1% of the Warsaw Ghetto residents had survived the war. In the next few years, Sendler reorganized a field hospital, in which she worked as a nurse toward the end of the war, as the Warsaw’s Children Home. She resumed her social work activities, and in 1945 she was appointed head of the Department of Social Welfare in Warsaw’s municipal government. In 1947, she joined the Social-Professional Department of the Polish Workers Party Central Committee. Over the next two decades, she held various administrative positions in the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health. In 1962, at the age of 52, she was named deputy director of Warsaw trade medical schools, where she established numerous social work projects, including a care center for orphans and the elderly and a rehabilitation program for teenage prostitutes. In 1967, she resigned from her management positions due to health problems and worked as a teacher and librarian until her retirement at 73 years old. Over the years, she was active in many social organizations, including the League of Women, the National League to Fight Racism, the Warsaw National Council, and the Friends of Children Association. She became a well-known public figure only in 1999 when her story was found by three high school students from Uniontown, Kansas, when they were searching for a project for the National History Day competition. Led by their teacher, the students produced a play named Life in a Jar, based on her life story and saving the children’s operation. The play was staged in the US and Poland in front of 90 years old Sendler and later was adapted for television as The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler. She died at the age of 98. Read more...

Jeanne Mance was born in Langres, France, to a minor nobility family. From an early age, she decided not to marry and serve God and people in need. When the Thirty Years War reached her region, she started to work with charitable societies, developed nursing skills, and even attended to the victims of the plague that burst in her area and killed more than 5,000 people in Langres. In 1640, at the age of 34, Mance was recruited by Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve as a member of the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal, to travel to the New World and establish a new French colony on the Island of Montréal. Her role in the mission was to find a hospital for the settlers. Devoted to the cause, she persuaded donors to finance the mission and recruit more members. Thanks to her, the donations doubled, and the number of new settlers expanded from 8 to 38. Nine of them were women. On May 9th, 1641, the expedition embarked on three months journey across the Atlantic, reaching the Island of Montreal on May 17th, 1642. On her arrival, she got the responsibility for all “indoors,” including food, housing, health, and property, while Maisonneuve was in charge of “outdoors and war.” In that same year, Mance began to operate a hospital in her home, and within three years, she founded the Hôtel-Dieu hospital, serving as a nurse, director, and treasurer. The hospital was small, containing only eight beds (six for men and two for women). The equipment was poor, and the funds were running out. In addition, the living conditions were difficult, the climate was harsh, and many of the first settlers left the colony. Given the circumstances, in 1650, 44 years old Mance traveled to France and managed to recruit more donations and more colonists, one of them was Marguerite Bourgeoys, a French nun and the founder of the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal. Seven years later, Mance went on another recruiting mission in France, returning with enough money and three nuns who helped in the hospital. With the new staff, Mance was able to work less at the hospital and focused on the colony’s administration. She died at the age of 67 after a long illness. Read more...

Florence Nightingale was born into a British aristocratic liberal Unitarian family and grew up in England. Her parents had a liberal and advanced approach to women’s education, so she and her older sister studied mathematics, philosophy, history, literature, German, French, Latin, and Greek. Nightingale supported the ill and poor people in the village near her family’s estate from an early age. At 16, she experienced a series of “calls from god” that encouraged her to devote her life to helping the sick and become a nurse. It was an unusual decision for these days when aristocrat girls were expected to get married and be in charge of the children and household. Despite her family disapproval, Nightingale educated herself on the principles of nursing, and in 1850, at the age of 30, she enrolled in a three months training at the Institution of Protestant Deaconesses at Kaiserswerth in Germany, where she learned basic nursing skills, patient observation practices, and hospital organization methods. In 1853, 33 years old Nightingale was appointed as superintendent at the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in London. There, she worked on improving the working conditions, nursing care, and efficiency of the facility. In that same year, the Crimean War broke out, and thousands of British soldiers were sent to the Black Sea to fight the Russian Empire over the control of the Ottoman Empire. The field hospitals were founded in Scutari, but the conditions and medical supplies were not adequate to treat the wounded soldiers, and more soldiers were dying from infectious diseases they contracted in the hospital than the battle injuries that brought them there. In 1854, Sidney Herbert, the secretary of state at war for the British government, whom Nightingale met a few years earlier in her traveling in Europe, requested her to lead a delegation of nurses to Scutari in a mission to organize the hospital and tend the soldiers. On October 21st, 1854, Nightingale, with 38 nurses, left for Turkey. On their arrival at the Barrack Hospital in Scutari on November 5th, they found an establishment that was not fit for human habitation. The hospital was located on top of a cesspool that contaminated the water supply; the patients lay on stretchers throughout the hallways, soaking in their own excrement, bugs and rodents were everywhere, and basic medical and hygiene supplies, such as bandages and soap, were scarce. Nightingale and her nurses immediately began to clean and improve the sanitary conditions of the hospital. They established a bathing routine for the patients and a cleaning schedule of the clothing and linens, and they created an “invalid’s kitchen” to cook meals for patients with special dietary needs. Nightingale was also aware of the importance of psychological care, assisting the soldiers in writing letters for their families and providing intellectual stimulation and entertainment with a classroom and library. During the nights, she used to go through the dark wards with her lamp, talking to the patients and supporting them physically and mentally, for which she earned the nickname “The Lady with the Lamp.” Within six months, her methods reduced the mortality rate in the facility to merely 2%. The Crimean War ended on March 30th, 1856, and Nightingale stayed in Scutari for a few more months to close and evacuate the hospital properly. When she returned to England, she was accepted as heroin. She met with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to discuss medical care reform in the British military establishment. She presented the records, statistics, and charts she made while running the Barrack Hospital, showing how the nurses’ work improved the facility’s and soldiers’ conditions and decreased the death rate. The Queen rewarded her with an engraved brooch and a prize of $250,000 from the British government. In 1860, Nightingale used the fund to open the Nightingale School of Nursing at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London. The school educated its students on all the aspects of the profession, from physical and mental care to hygiene and management, redefined nursing as a respectable and available occupation for women outside their homes. Soon, the school model was replicated around the world. The Nightingale Fund financed other healthcare reforms, including midwives’ school at King’s College Hospital and the district nursing training program for improving home health care for the poor. During her time in Scutari, Nightingale contracted a bacterial infection known as the “Crimean fever.” The fatigue and severe chronic pain caused by the disease affected her for the rest of her life. By the age of 38, she was mainly homebound and confined to her bed, but this limitation did not prevent her from implementing her ideas on improving health care. She corresponded with health facilities from the US to Australia, sharing her knowledge, experience, and thoughts, and wrote more than 200 books, reports, and pamphlets on health-related issues. She died in her sleep at the age of 90 at her home in London.   Dive deeper into the inspiring story of Florence Nightingale with our fun and engaging printable worksheet! Available now on Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers. Read more...

Rebecca Lee Crumpler was born as Rebecca Davis in Christiana, Delaware, and was raised by her aunt in Pennsylvania. Growing up, she was inspired by her aunt, who acted as the community doctor, providing medical services and helping her sick neighbors. Crumpler was considered gifted in mathematics, and this permitted her to attend the prestigious private West-Newton English and Classical School in Massachusetts. At the age of 21, Crumpler moved to Charlestown, Massachusetts, where she met and wed her first husband, Wyatt Lee. With no requirements needed, Crumpler began to work as a nurse. During the next eight years, her talent and professionality impressed many of the doctors she worked with, who encouraged her to apply to medical school. In 1860, with letters of recommendation from her male doctor colleagues, Crumpler was accepted into the New England Female Medical College – the first African-American woman to attend the school. In 1864, at the age of 33, Crumpler graduated and was named a Doctor of Medicine, becoming the first African-American woman in the US to receive a medical degree. While in school, Crumpler’s husband died, and around the time she graduated, she married her second husband, Arthur Crumpler. The couple settled in Boston, and she practiced medicine, treating mostly poor African-American women and children. At the end of the Civil War, she moved to Richmond, Virginia, to treat former slaves who were denied medical care by white physicians. In addition to practicing medicine, she provided missionary service and took the opportunity to learn about women and children’s diseases. In 1869, Crumpler returned to Boston, where she treated the African-American community of Beacon Hill. She took care of anyone in need, epically children whose parents did not have the means to pay for medical services. At 43, she began to teach medicine in Delaware, and a few years later, she stopped practicing medicine, dedicating her time to write a medical book based on her notes from her career as a nurse and a physician. Published in 1883, her book, titled “A Book of Medical Discourses,” focuses on different medical care options for women and children. Crumpler died at the age of 64 of fibroid tumors.   Dive deeper into the inspiring story of Rebecca Lee Crumpler with our fun and engaging printable worksheet! Available now on Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers. Read more...

Lillian Wald was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a liberal Jewish family. When she was 11 years old, the family moved to Rochester, New York, where she attended a private boarding school. From a young age, she excelled in math, science, arts, and languages, and at 16, she applied to Vassar College but was rejected because of her young age. At age 22, she witnessed a nurse assisting her sister to give birth, and she decided to become one. She attended the New York Hospital’s School of Nursing, and then, the Woman’s Medical College. She worked at the New York Juvenile Asylum, taking care of the orphans as well as teaching a home nursing class for poor immigrant families in the Lower East Side, NYC. Wald was determined to bring affordable health care to those in need. She left school and moved to a room in the Lower East Side so she could be close to her patients. She coined the term “Public Health Nurse” to describe her work with the community and began to advocate for nursing in public schools. Her efforts led the New York Board of Health to establish the first public nursing system in the world, and Wald was appointed as the first president of the National Organization for Public Health Nursing. She promoted a national health insurance plan and established a nursing insurance partnership with an insurance company, which later replicated to other corporate projects. Wald believed that every city resident is entitled to health care, regardless of race, gender, or social status. That in mind, in 1895, she founded the Henry Street Settlement – a not-for-profit organization providing health care, social services, nurses’ training, and educational programs for the community. Within 13 years, the organization had 18 district centers, and by 1913 it had branches throughout NYC, taking care of thousands of patients. The settlements also provided employment opportunities for women, enabling them to have a career outside the house and become independent. In 1902, Wald initiated the first American public-school nursing program in NYC. She founded the National Child Labor Committee as well as the Women’s Trade Union League and served on its executive committee. Wald was one of the founding members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and held its first public conference at the Henry Street Settlement. In 1915, she co-founded the Henry Street Neighborhood Playhouse for the theater arts. Ahead of her time, Wald was an early advocate against child labor and was one of the Child Labor Committee’s prominent leaders, promoting federal child labor laws. As a women’s rights activist, she organized campaigns for NYC suffrage, and as a pacifist, she argued against the entry of the US into WW1, joined the Woman’s Peace Party, co-founded the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and served as president of the American Union Against Militarism. But when the US entered the war, she chaired the American Red Cross Committee on Community Nursing and represented the US at International Red Cross meetings. In 1933, after suffering a stroke, she retired to her house in Westport, Connecticut. She died at 73 of a cerebral hemorrhage. A few months after she passed away, more than 2000 people attended her memory ceremony at Carnegie Hall, in which the president, governor, and mayor delivered massages in her memory. In her lifework, Wald paved the way to the public health care of today. Read more...

Born in 1862 at Montour Falls, NY, Jane Arminda Delano’s life was devoted strictly to the profession of nursing. She studied at Cook Academy of her hometown and later graduated Bellevue Hospital School of Nursing in New York City. Her career included working and volunteering in various States, taking on leadership roles as the director of the Training School for Nurses, president of the American Nurses Association, and Superintendent of US Army Nurse Corps. She created the American Red Cross Nursing Service by uniting the organizations she led, training nurses for duty, and supporting teams in wars. She worked intensively, at one point fulfilling four different positions, only taking two years off to treat her dying mother. Her life was largely informed by wars – losing her father without knowing him in the Civil War, joining the New York Red Cross during Spanish-American War, and her most notable achievement for US history: recruiting more than 20,000 nurses to serve in World War I. As a pioneer in raising public health awareness, Delano initiated a popular course and a textbook, “Elementary Hygiene and Home Care of the Sick.” She advanced and dignified the professional status of nurses in her capacity as president of the Board of Directors of the American Journal of Nursing and president of the American Nurses Association. Delano died at the age of 57 from illness while on a mission to visit nurses in post-war France. Five hundred nurses attended her funeral in Savenay, France. The following year her body was relocated to Arlington National Cemetery in the US. The public records of her story include almost no mentioning of personal life, such as love, children, or hobbies. Read more...

Clara Barton was born in Massachusetts. When she was ten, she started practicing her nursing skills when taking care of her older brother for two years after he fell from a roof and got severely injured; she even learned how to place leeches on his body. Barton’s parents encouraged her to become a teacher to overcome her shyness. At 24, Barton founded a school for workers’ children and later established the first free school in New Jersey. When the school became successful, the board replaced her with a man, and Barton got demoted, so she quit. Barton moved to Washington, DC, and started working as a clerk in the US Patent office; she was the first woman appointed to such a position in a federal office and got equally paid as her male colleagues. When the Civil War began, she quit her job to support the Union soldiers. Barton distributed supplies and served as an independent nurse, and therefore received the nickname ‘The angel of the battlefield.’ After the war, she established the Office of Missing Soldiers, helping identify soldiers, reunite them with their families, or arrange burials. The office has became a museum. After learning about the International Red Cross while traveling in Europe, Barton started lobbying and building support to establish an American chapter of the organization. The American Red Cross was founded in 1881, with Barton serving as its first president. At the age of 83, after she was forced to resign from the Red Cross due to autocratic leadership, Barton founded the National First Aid Society. Barton remained an activist for human rights and the women’s suffrage movement, giving lectures until her last years. She also published an autobiography. The Clara Barton National Historic Site, established in 1975, was the first National Historic Site in the U.S. honoring the legacy of a woman.   Dive deeper into the inspiring story of Clara Barton with our fun and engaging printable worksheet! Available now on Etsy and Teachers Pay Teachers. Read more...