Bucking the System: Women in the Health
Sciences at the University of Iowa, 1874 - 1950

The History of Nursing

Historic Nurses

The first half of the nineteenth century saw nursing conditions at their worst. Nursing had become a job for the "undesirables" in society -- the immoral, the alcoholic, and the illiterate. They scrubbed, washed, cleaned, worked long hours, and essentially led a life of drudgery. Roaches, other insects, and vermin plagued the nurses in the hospitals of this period. Pay for nurses was poor and was frequently supplemented in any way possible. The nurses expected and took bribes whenever they could be obtained. The deplorable status of nurses and nursing continued throughout this period. There was little organization associated with nursing and certainly no social standing. No one would enter nursing who could possibly earn a living in some other way. The vocation of nursing was significantly strengthened by the establishment of the Deaconess Institute at Kaiserswerth, Germany in 1836. This institute trained women in nursing services and is credited with creating the first modern order of deaconesses. An arrangement known as the motherhouse system was established for the deaconesses in which they received no pay for their work, but were taken care of for life. A spin-off of the monastic system, the motherhouse offered the security of a permanent home and protection. Although the Deaconess Institute at Kaiserswerth started on a modest scale, its influence spread beyond German boundaries; graduates went to all corners of the globe to assist with the care of the sick and the needy. The most significant of these was Florence Nightingale, who has been hailed as the pioneer and founder of modern nursing.

14. Florence nightingale, June 6, 1857 courtesy of Nursing: An Illustrated History, M. Patricia Donahue, Ph. D., RN

Florence Nightingale was born in 1820 to wealthy English parents and received a progressive education. By the time she was seventeen she had mastered several ancient and modern languages, was well read in literature, philosophy, religion, history, political economy, and science, and had mastered higher mathematics. She was probably better educated than most men of her time. At a very early age she expressed a desire to enter nursing; her parents objected because of the hospital conditions of the day. It took sixteen years to overcome family obstacles, but she eventually studied nursing at various European institutions, among them the Maison de la Providence in Paris and a short stint at Kaiserswerth.

As she began to plan and prepare for the superintendent's position at King's College Hospital, British and French troops invaded the Crimea in support of Turkey's dispute with Russia. This event precipitated an unexpected situation. Reports of injured British soldiers being treated in filthy, overcrowded hospitals soon reached England. The death rate was an alarming 42.7 percent. The country was outraged; the situation demanded immediate attention. Secretary of War Sir Sidney Herbert appealed to Florence Nightingale to lead a contingent of female nurses to Turkey and supervise the military hospitals there. She agreed and on October 21, 1854, she departed for the base hospital at Scutari accompanied by 38 nurses.

When Nightingale reached Turkey, the conditions were appalling. Barrack Hospital, built to accommodate 1,700 patients, was packed with 3,000 to 4,000. Candles in empty beer bottles lit up the human agony. An open sewer that attracted rats and vermin was immediately under the building and there was no water, soap, or towels. Men lay practically naked or in ragged uniforms clotted with blood. Essential surgical and medical supplies were lacking and there was no dietary or laundry equipment of any kind!

Florence Nightingale's skills as an administrator were demonstrated as she convinced the military of necessary changes and dealt with unreliable nursing staff. She overcame these obstacles and transformed a place of horror into a haven where patients could truly convalesce. She set up five diet kitchens, a laundry, coffee houses that provided music and recreation, reading rooms, and she organized classes. The greatest measure of Nightingale's success was the overall drop in the mortality rate--to 2.2 percent--that occurred within six months' time.

When she was reasonably satisfied with the conditions at Barrack Hospital, Nightingale travelled to other British military hospitals in Europe and Asia to organize similar transformations. She continued her service until contracting "Crimean Fever" and coming close to death herself. She never fully recovered and returned to England in July 1856, four months after the war ended.

Two figures emerged from the Crimea as heroic, the soldier and the nurse... Never again would the picture of a nurse be a tipsy, promiscuous harridan. Miss Nightingale had stamped the profession of nurse with her own image...in the midst of the muddle and the filth, the agony and the defeats, she had brought about a revolution.
(Florence Nightingale by C. Woodham-Smith, 1951 p. 179)

Nursing: The Finest Art:An Illustrated History, by M. Patricia Donahue, PhD, RN, C.V. Mosby Company, St. Louis, Mo., 1985.

Velora Patten Melohn:
Nursing School Class of 1919

15. Velora Patten Melohn at her graduation 1919 Courtesy of Louise (Hammond) Anderson

Velora Melohn graduated from the University of Iowa School of Nursing in 1919. After graduation, she worked in pediatrics at the Children's Hospital for a short time. In 1921 she married a patient she had met while working in a Fort Dodge hospital. Melohn continued to utilize her nursing skills after she was married. According to her niece, Louise Hammond Andersen, Mrs. Melohn adopted a child, David, after her first-born died in infancy. The baby boy she and her husband adopted required special care and she felt particularly qualified by training and temperament to undertake this challenge. Two years after adopting David, she gave birth to her second son, Fred. As a farmer's wife, she cared for all the sick animals. Every year she raised the runts of the litters by hand to increase their chances of survival. Over the years, this helped boost farm profits.

In her community, she was often called upon to care for the sick. She was also active in the American Red Cross in Storm Lake, Iowa where she taught first aid classes during World War II. As recalled by Velora Melohn's niece, Louise (Hammond) Andersen 16. Student nurses at Oakdale Sanatorium, Velora Patten Melohn is at the right rear, 1916, courtesy of Louise (Hammond) Anderson

17. Velora Patten Melohn and Fay Schlarbaum of University Hospitals
1916
Courtesy of Louise (Hammond) Anderson

Ruth Frederick Dunlap, 1896-1953:
Nursing School Class of 1921

As the eldest of eight children, Ruth Frederick "spent many hours helping her mother in the rearing of her younger brothers and sisters, with keeping house, with cooking, and with the family laundry. She helped with all the chores necessary to keep a turn-of-the-century farm running smoothly." After graduating from high school in 1914, she taught in rural Adams county schools to put away money for college. It is not surprising Ruth planned to attend the university; her father, John Mills Frederick, was college educated and a Methodist lay minister as well as a farmer. Frederick entered the University of Iowa School of Nursing in 1916. She lived in a boarding house in Iowa City until she was "capped" and then moved into Eastlawn, the nurses' dormitory. Upon graduation in 1921, Ruth received her State of Iowa Nursing Certificate and continued to work at the University of Iowa Hospitals in the Obstetrics & Gynecology Department. When Frederick left to marry Hugh Allen Dunlap in 1926, she was nursing supervisor in that department. Her daughter-in-law recalls:

18. Ruth (Frederick) Dunlap Courtesy Gloria Dunlap

Throughout the years she kept abreast of new information in the medical field and always kept her license current. After her family was reared, she returned to work as a private duty nurse, working occasionally at the request of family friends. In later years she worked quite frequently at both University and Mercy Hospitals.

She nursed her husband's invalid mother at home for nearly two years, until her mother-in-law's death. She nursed her eldest daughter through rheumatic fever and her eldest son through a severe accident. Her husband was an architectural engineer in the construction business, and had more than one accident that required immediate first aid and medical care. She nursed her children through all the usual contagious children's diseases. Children with measles, chicken pox, whooping cough, and scarlet fever were quarantined by the county public health officer in those days. She was in great demand as a private duty nurse. Her warm personality and kind heart endeared her to her patients; she always seemed to make them feel better. (She specialed my uncle after his surgery--he wouldn't have anyone else!)..She was a firm believer in education and made sure her children attended college. After tucking her special duty patient into bed for the night, she died on her way home from work in December, 1953.

19. Ruth Frederick Dunlap circa 1921 Courtesy of Gloria Dunlap

Recollected by Gloria Dunlap, Ruth Frederick Dunlap's daughter-in-law.

20. Ruth Frederick Dunlap (3rd front) with her family
no date

Myrtle Kitchell Aydelotte
(1917 - )

In July 1949, Myrtle Kitchell came to the State University of Iowa as Director of the School of Nursing. Five months later, when the transformation from the School of Nursing to the College of Nursing was complete, she became the college's first dean (the first female dean on campus) and professor in the College of Nursing.

An academic innovator, Kitchell was instrumental in creating the College of Nursing and in planning the four-year curriculum that led to the Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing. She initiated a program enabling nurses with three-year diplomas to pursue a BS degree in Nursing and established an undergraduate program in psychiatric nursing and a master's program in nursing service administration. She completed her PhD at the University of Minnesota in 1955 and married in 1956. After resigning from her position as Dean the following year, she continued to teach in the College of Nursing. In 1968 she was named Director of Nursing Services at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, a position she held until 1976. National recognition of her leadership came in 1977 when she became Executive Director of the American Nurses' Association, a position she held until 1981. Robnett, Michelle K. The Growth of a Nursing Leader: Myrtle Kitchell Aydelotte. M.A. Thesis in Nursing. The University of Iowa, May 1986.

21. Myrtle Kitchell Aydelotte, c. 1950

22. Army Nurse Corp Cap circa 1943 Worn by Myrtle Kitchell during WWII. Kitchell was Assistant Chief Nurse, Army Nurse Corps, 26th General Hospital from 1942 to 1845. In 1945 Captain Kitchell was appointed Chief Nurse, Army Nurse Corps, 52nd Station Hospital in Italy where she remained until the end of the war. Of her service she stated, "I certainly learned nursing...care of trauma. That was a tremendous clinical experience...it also gave me some ideas on how people should be treated..." Robnett, Michelle K. The Growth of a Nursing Leader: Myrtle Kitchell Aydelotte. M.A. Thesis in Nursing. The University of Iowa, May 1986. UIHC Medical Museum Gift of Myrtle Kitchell Aydelotte, PhD, 1991