Burns Library Collections

Some of the material relates to Shiloah, a non-profit foundation concerned with the spiritual dimension of nursing and healing in general, and Promisek, a non-profit concerned with the healing relationship between individuals and land.

Dolan was the first instructor in the School of Nursing at the University of Connecticut (1944), where she taught a course on the history of nursing. She pursued nursing history for the remainder of her lengthy career, including her work with the Committee on Historic Source Materials in Nursing. Dolan received many honors, including the first National League for Nursing Distinguished Service Award (1972), an honorary degree from Boston College (1987), and the Massachusetts Nurses Association's Lucy Lincoln Drown Nursing History Society's award (1992). Dolan died in 2004.

Cynthia E. Northrop was born in 1950, in North Tonawanda, New York. She earned a master's degree in nursing from the University of Maryland and studied law at the University of Baltimore. She founded the American Association of Nurse Attorneys in 1977 and served as president from the time of its incorporation in 1982 until 1985. Throughout her life she worked as public health nurse, a professor, and a lawyer in private practice. With Mary E. Kelly, she wrote the book Legal Issues in Nursing, published in 1987. She died in 1989.

Sister Madeleine Clemence Vaillot was born in 1907, in Bourdan, France. Vaillot, a member of the Dominican Sisters of the Presentation, began her career as a registered nurse in 1936 at a French Hospital in Barcelona, Spain. Between 1936-1939 she served as a staff nurse at the Clinica della Presentazione in Italy. In 1939, Vaillot arrived in the United States, and she became the director of St. Anne's School of Nursing in Fall River, Massachusetts. She held that post until 1969. While serving as director she earned her Master's of Education (1953) and Ph.D. (1960) from Boston College. She was an assistant professor at Boston College from 1960 to 1967. In 1969, she became Dean of the College of Nursing at Southeastern Massachusetts University in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Vaillot was a member of many professional organizations. Vaillot died in 2003.

The New England Deaconess Hospital was founded in Boston in 1896, and its first class of nurses graduated in 1898. The School of Nursing expanded greatly in the early twentieth century. From 1913-1963 it was associated with Simmons College, and from 1963 on with Northeastern University. The school closed in 1989.

St. Elizabeth's Hospital School of Nursing was established in 1895, at the request of the hospital physicians for an onsite training school, in Boston’s South End neighborhood. The School was accredited by the Massachusetts State Board of Registration in Nursing in 1910. Moving to Brighton in 1912, it expanded to include several substantial additions to the campus between 1925 and 1986. Clinical residency was offered in St. Elizabeth's Hospital, but by 1985 also at Bournewood Hospital, Franciscan Children's Hospital and Rehabilitation Center, Newton-Wellesley Hospital, St. John of God Hospital, and through collaboration with Boston-area community healthcare providers. St. Elizabeth's began to host Boston College graduate nursing students completing their clinical practice in 1960. In 1977 the School of Nursing established a partnership with Regis College that allowed St. Elizabeth's nursing students to simultaneously earn credits towards a bachelor’s degree. The school graduated its last class in May of 2000.

The American Association of Nurse Attorneys (TAANA) was founded in 1977 by Cynthia E. Northrop. In 1982 TAANA was officially incorporated and their first national meeting was held that November in Washington, DC. TAANA established regional chapters across the country, and it provided services such as attorney referral, education, and job postings. In 1984 the TAANA Foundation was incorporated to provide education about legal aspects of health care. The association publishes a newsletter, originally called ...In Brief (1983-1985) and then Inside TAANA (since 1985). It also publishes The Journal of Nursing Law (since 1993).

The North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA) was created in 1982 at the Fifth National Conference for Classification of Nursing Diagnosis. NANDA develops, refines and promotes a taxonomy of nursing diagnostic terminology of general use to professional nurses.

The Visiting Nurse Association of Boston was founded in 1886 as the Instructive District Nursing Association (IDNA). It was begun by Abbie Crowell Howes and Hannah Adam with the cooperation of the Boston Dispensary and the Women's Education Association for the purpose of developing and maintaining a service agency to provide home nursing care to the sick poor of Boston. In 1926 it was cited as a model for private and public health nursing service in homes and communities. In 1943 the association's name was changed to the Visiting Nurse Association of Boston (VNA). In 1986 the association celebrated its centennial.