Julia Catherine Stimson: nurse and feminist.

Abstract

Julia Catherine Stimson was the superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps from 1919 until 1937, holding this most senior position longer than any other nurse leader in the 91-year history of the Army Nurse Corps. She was the dean of the Army School of Nursing for 14 of the school's 15 years of existence. Her tenure as president of the American Nurses' Association from 1938 to 1944 spanned what might be considered one of the organization's most tumultuous and challenging times. Additionally, Stimson was one of the most versatile of prominent nurse leaders who shaped the profession's illustrious past. Stimson actively lived a feminist ideology in several singularly oppressive and paternalistic contexts--the upper-class Victorian home, the turn-of-the-century hospital setting and the military establishment of the early 20th century.