Clara D. Noyes, R.N. by Roger L Noyes

Clara D. Noyes, R.N. by Roger L Noyes

A famous nurse in the early twentieth century, Clara D. Noyes is little known to the public today, despite her enormous influence in wartime nursing. As a leader at the American Red Cross, Noyes helped mobilize over 20,000 nurses to serve in World War I and other disasters, including the Mississippi Flood of 1927. This dramatic role made her one of the first women to prepare her American sisters for patriotic service on a large scale. Her story shows how a nation's wartime needs created a new pathway for women's leadership, as Noyes and her peers recruited, assigned, mobilized and demobilized war nurses in a way that was indistinguishable from the male-dominated military.

Within this fertile ground for leadership, Noyes fought on behalf of several important women's causes, and served as one of the strongest voices for the professional advancement of nurses in the face of institutional exploitation. After the war, she worked with heads of state and international Red Cross societies to establish schools of nursing in Europe. Without exaggeration, Clara Noyes influenced just about every major question affecting the roles of nurses in the first quarter of the twentieth century.