The Country Goes to War:
World
War II |
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The bombing of Pearl Harbor
on December 7, 1942 catapulted the United States into World War II. Graduates
quickly responded to the military's call for nurses, leaving the home front understaffed. The need
for nurses was great in all aspects of service: in hospitals, in the community, and in
industry. |
"Be it resolved ... that we,
the delegates of the American Nurses Association ... wish to offer the support and strength of our
organizations in any nursing activity in which we can be of service to the country."
Report of Committee on Resolutions, Report of the 32nd Biennial Convention (p.80),
American Nurses Association Resolution, May 1940 |
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US Cadet Nurse Corps,
1943 -- 1948
After careful consideration of nursing needs, the National Nursing Council for War Services
(1940), chaired by ANA president Julia Stimson, developed a plan to increase the number of
nurses in the country as quickly as possible. The plan, introduced to Congress by Frances Payne
Bolton, congresswoman from Ohio, created the US Cadet Nurse Corps. Under this Act, the
United States Public Health Service subsidized the entire education of nursing students --
including tuition, fees, books, uniforms and monthly stipends. To obtain the benefits, a student
was required to promise to engage in essential military or civilian nursing for the duration of the
war. Over 179,000 young women enrolled in the Corps. |
Urgent Need For
Nurses
"The Army nurse corps must have 10,000 nurses
in the shortest possible time. Campaigns on all fronts are resulting in about 12,000 casualties a
week ..."
AJN (November 1944), Editorial, p. 1017 |
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The 1946 ANA Platform:
A
Plan For The Future
- Improvement in hours and living conditions for nurses, so that they may live a normal
personal and professional life, specifically, action toward
- (a) wider acceptance of the 40-hour week with no decrease of salary, thus applying to our
post-war conditions the principle of the 8-hour day adopted by the American Nurses Association
in 1934;
- (b) minimum salaries adequate to attract and hold nurses of quality, and to enable them to
maintain standards of living comparable with other professions.
- Provision of optimal nursing care for all, and furtherance of a positive health program in all
communities.
- Increased participation by nurses in the actual planning and administration of nursing
service, in hospitals and other types of employment.
- Greater development of nurses' professional associations as exclusive spokesmen for
nurses in questions affecting their employment and economic security. Such a development
would be based on past successful experience of professional nurses' organizations in collective
bargaining and negotiation.
- Removal, as rapidly as possible, of barriers that prevent the full employment and
professional development of nurses belonging to minority racial groups.
- Employment of well-qualified practical nurses and other auxiliary workers under state
licensure, thus protecting both the patient and the worker.
- Continuing improvement in the counseling and placement of nurses, to give greater
stability and satisfaction to the profession and to facilitate a better distribution of nursing service
to the public.
- Further development of nursing in prepayment health and medical care plans, in order to
spread the cost of nursing service to the public.
- Maintenance of educational standards, and development of educational resources, that
nursing may keep abreast of the rapid advances in medicine and other sciences. Such
development may well require federal subsidies and contributions from foundations and other
educational philanthropies.
- Appraisal of our own national organizations, through the Report on the Structure of
Organized Nursing, and fearless action based upon such appraisal, to make sure that the nursing
profession will be organized and equipped to deal most effectively with its problems and its
opportunities.
"Platform for ANA", AJN (November 1946), p. 729
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No nurse was barred from ANA membership because of race, creed,
or color. However, some states had discriminatory admission practices, and many
African-Americans were denied membership in the state organization. To rectify this injustice, in
May 1950 the House of Delegates adopted a platform that pledged to
"... promote full participation of minority groups in association
activities, and eliminate discrimination in job opportunities, salaries, and other working
conditions."
Platform for the American Nurses Association, 1950 -- 1952 (Final Form), Biennial
Convention Proceedings 1950, Volume I, p. 101
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"... the economic security of the
nurse is a matter of vital importance to all ... This question of economics is one of many which
we must answer if we are to fulfill [ANA's] purpose ... to make possible good nursing service to
all who need it."
Katherine Densford, RN, President's Address, Report of the Thirty-fifth Biennial
Convention (p. 12), September 1946 |
Copyright 1996 American Nurses
Association, 600 Maryland Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20024-2571
All rights reserved. No reproduction without permission of
ANA. |
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