North Carolina Nursing History

Lydia Holman, a nurse from Philadelphia, arrived in Mitchell County in the North Carolina mountains to care for a wealthywoman who was ill with typhoid fever at her vacation home. Holman created a “nurses settlement” in Mitchell County which provided care for citizens in rural, Appalachian Northwest North Carolina for over 60 years.

Twin City Hospital and School of Nursing opened in Winston-Salem.

Dr. Henry F. Long’s Hospital School of Nursing opened in Statesville.

Almost all nurses worked in private duty.  Here is a clipping of a newspaper advertisement from 1901:

1901, Sep 28. Miss Undine Barham, Graduate Nurse, Of Watts Hospital, Durham, N.C. The Durham Sun, p.1. Durham, North Carolina.

Fourteen nurses, called together by Mary L. Wyche formed the Raleigh Nurses Association, a forerunner of the North Carolina Nurses Association and the North Carolina Board of Nursing. Membership was restricted to white female nurses.

Good Samaritan Hospital and School of Nursing opened in Charlotte (the second nursing school for African American women to open in the state).

The Wilson Sanatorium with a school of Nursing opened in Wilson, NC.

Dix Hospital in Raleigh opened a nursing school with an emphasis on psychiatric and mental health nursing. Dix Hospital School of Nursing initially admitted both men and women of the white race. The men's program was shortly discontinued.

On March 3rd, the North Carolina Nurse Practice Act was enacted, making North Carolina the first state to ensure standards of education and clinical expertise before a person could use the title “Registered Nurse”.  The Nurse Practice Act has been modified many times throughout its first century, generally becoming more "nurse friendly" with each change.

On June 4th, Josephine Burton of Craven County became the first Registered Nurse in North Carolina and therefore the first Registered Nurse in the United States. The next day, Mary Rose Batterham of Asheville, long thought to be the first Registered Nurse in the United States, registered in Buncombe County.  Charlotte Rhone a Freedman's Hospital graduate from New Bern registered in June 1903  and around the same time Annie Lowe Rutherford of Fayetteville also Registered and they became the first African American Registered Nurses in NC. Mary Briscoe, a St. Agnes Hospital, Raleigh, graduate became the first African American to pass the State Boards in 1916.

Lincoln Hospital and School of Nursing opened in Durham (the 3rd nursng school for African American women to open in NC).

James Walker Hospital School of Nursing in opened in Wilmington.

Amanda Lawrison of Wilmington became the first Public Health nurse to practice in North Carolina.

Mercy Hospital, a Catholic Hospital and School of Nursing opened in Charlotte.

St. Leo’s Hospital, a Catholic Hospital and School of Nurisng opened in Greensboro.

Data reported in the 1906 Report of the US Department of Education for Schools of Nursing in North Carolina.

The U.S. Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 is the first national law regulating purity of food and medicines sold in the United States.The Act required that certain special drugs, including alcohol, morphine, cannabis, heroin and cocaine be accurately labeled with contents and dosage. These and other such drugs continued to be legally available without prescription as long as they were labeled. Nurses along with physicians, other categories of health care workers and individuals could legally puchase and use these drugs as they saw fit.  Anyone could walk into a drug store and purchase cocaine, heroin, morphine or numerous other medicines. Heroin was a common ingredient in children's cough medicines, and cocaine was the namesake and key ingredient of Coca-Cola.

Amendments were made to the NC Nurse Practice Act.

Rutherford Hospital School of Nursing opens at Rutherford General Hospital in Rutherford County.