Nurses' Associated Alumnae
of the United States and Canada

The Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada drafted a constitution and bylaws, and arranged for the group's first meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, in February 1897.

The goals of the Association:

"To establish and maintain a code of ethics; to elevate the standard of nursing education; to promote the usefulness and honor, the financial and other interests of nursing."
Minutes of the Association (February 1897)

The World's Colombian Exhibition, held in Chicago in 1893, served as the meeting site for leaders of American, British, and Canadian nurses. Brought together by Isabel Hampton, Superintendent of the Johns Hopkins Training School, the women joined forces to address nursing's major problems: its lack of control of nurses training schools, the absence of legal registration for nurses, and the lack of unity among nurses throughout the world.

The American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses (renamed the National League for Nursing Education in 1912) was quickly formed. Three years later, the Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States of American and Canada was formed.

Graduate nurses served as independent private city nurses employed by families to care for patients in homes or hospitals.

Addressing nursing's lack of control of the quality of its education and the use of the title "Trained Nurse," Isabel Hampton noted

"'Trained Nurse' meant anything, everything, or next to nothing."
Isabel A. Hampton (First Alumnae President), "Educational Standards for Nurses" in Nursing of the Sick, 1893 (1949 ed., p. 17)

"We nurses of all nations, sincerely believing that the best good of our profession will be advanced by greater unity of thought, sympathy and purpose, do hereby band ourselves in a confederation of workers to further the efficient care of the sick, and to secure the honor and the interests of the nursing profession."
Preamble to the ICN Constitution, 1900

International Council of Nurses--1899

Mrs. Bedford Fenwick, the President of the British Nursing section of the Chicago World's Fair, proposed in 1893 that an international nursing organization be established to support the development of professional nursing around the globe. With the support of Nurses Association Alumnae leaders, the International Council of Nurses was founded in Great Britain in 1899.

Charter Nurse Alumnae Groups
and Representatives

• Bellevue Hospital Training School (New York City)
• Brooklyn Hospital Training School (New York City)
• Farrand Training School, Harper Hospital (Detroit)
• Garfield Hospital Training School (Washington, DC)
• Illinois Training School, Cook County Hospital (Chicago)
• Johns Hopkins Training School (Baltimore)
• Massachusetts General Hospital Training School (Boston)
• New York Hospital Training School (New York City)
• Philadelphia Hospital Training School (Philadelphia)
• University of Pennsylvania Training School (Philadelphia)

Alumnae Representatives

• Connecticut Training School (New Haven)

Canadian

• Royal Victorian Training School (Montreal)
• Toronto General Training School (Toronto)