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Collection FitA : Alice Fitzgerald Collection

Description

Key

72541

Reference Code Element

FitA

Type

Text

Dates

1903-1964, inclusive

Extent

4.3 linear feet

Creator

Personal name, Fitzgerald, Alice Louise Florence, 1874-1962

Administrative/Biographical History

Alice Louise Florence Fitzgerald
13 March 1874- 10 Nov 1962.
Alice Louise Florence Fitzgerald was born in March 13, 1874 and raised in Florence, Italy to a Baltimore family. She was educated in France, Switzerland and Germany. She entered the Johns Hopkins Training School for Nurses in 1902 against her family's wishes. During her training, she was called back to Italy. She graduated from the Johns Hopkins Training School for Nurses, completing her time of service in 1907 but as a member of the class of 1906. After graduation she remained at Hopkins as a head nurse for a year. In 1908, as a member of the Florence branch of the Italian Red Cross, she assisted in earthquake relief in Messina, Italy. In 1909-1910 she returned to Hopkins as a head nurse. From Dec. 1910 to Aug. 1912 she worked at Bellevue Hospital in New York as a head nurse in order to reorganize its operating room nursing service. From 1912-1913 she was Superintendent of Nurses at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital in Pennsylvania. In 1913 she became the first superintendent of nurses at the Robert Long Hospital at the University of Indiana in Indianapolis. In 1915 she took a summer course at Teachers College, Columbia University. She then was in charge of Health Services at Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Massachusetts. In 1916 she was selected as the Edith Cavell Memorial Nurse from Massachusetts. She served as an American Nurse with the British Expeditionary Forces at Hospital No. 13 in France from 1916-1917. In Dec. 1917, upon America's entrance into World War I, she resigned to join the American Red Cross. She served in France and Italy, at the Paris Headquarters, at zone headquarters in Bordeaux, as chief nurse in the Service de Sante in Paris, and at a Hospital in Rimini for Venetian refugees. She remained in Europe after the war as Chief Nurse of the American Red Cross Commission in Europe. She organized local nursing schools and public health nursing services in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Montenegro, and Albania. In Oct. 1919, she became the first Director of the Nursing Bureau of the League of Red Cross Societies in Geneva. She started the International School for Public Health Nurses for the Florence Nightingale International Foundation in London. She returned to the United States briefly in 1921. In 1922, she went to the Philippines for 2 years at the request of the International Health Board of the Rockefeller Foundation as an advisor on Public Health Nursing to Governor General Leonard Wood, where she organized a public health nursing service. In 1923 she, along with the Filipino nurses she was training, assisted in earthquake relief work in Japan. Starting in 1924 she surveyed the nursing needs in Siam, Hongkong, and Singapore. In 1926 she started a nursing school at Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok. This was followed by a survey of nursing in China in 1928. She returned to the United States in 1929. She completed a survey of nursing schools in the state of Maryland for the Maryland State Board of Nurse Examiners. She was director of nurses at Polyclinic Hospital in New York from 1930-1936. She then resigned to write her memoirs and raise marmosets. In 1940 she was awarded a medal for her work with the American Bureau for Medical Aid to China. Her last nursing position was as housemother in the nurses home at Shepard Pratt Hospital in Baltimore. She retired from active nursing in 1948. She lived the remainder of her life at Peabody Nursing Home in New York City, where she died on Nov. 10, 1962., JHHSON Class of 1906

Chronology

Johns Hopkins Hospital Training School for Nurses, student., 1903-1906

Scope and Content

The Alice Fitzgerald Collection consists primarily of diaries, scrapbooks, correspondence, clippings, photographs, certificates and medals, relating to Fitzgerald's nursing service in Europe during World War I and in Asia during the 1920s.

Subjects - Name

Personal name, Fitzgerald, Alice Louise Florence, 1874-1962

Corporate name, Johns Hopkins Hospital. School of Nursing. Class of 1906

Subjects

Topic, Nurses and Nursing

Topic, World War, 1914-1918

Location & Availability of Originals

Maryland Historical Society has an Alice Fitzgerald Collection, which includes her memoirs from c. 1936 and a diary from 1916-1917.

Language

English

Notes

A brief biography by Iris Noble, Nurse Around the World: Alice Fitzgerald, was published in 1964, using both Fitzgerald's unpublished memoir and the Fitzgerald papers in the Historical Collection.

Administration

Date(s) of Descriptions

2003

Processing Information

The Collection was processed by Phoebe Evans Letocha and Anthony Dellureficio in 2003 with funding from the Johns Hopkins Nurses' Alumni Association.

Accession

2016-056

2004-087

2001-102

2001-087

2001-005

2000-126

2000-125

Custodial History

Alice Fitzgerald donated her papers and medals to the Johns Hopkins Nursing Historical Collection in 1943 and continued to add to the collection as late as 1949. The Fitzgerald papers and medals were moved with the rest of the Historical Collection in 1968 to the Nightingale Room in Welch Library. Between 2000-2001, the Fitzgerald materials moved to the Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives as part of several accessions of the Nursing Historical Collection.

Composed Of

Found 5 record(s)

Reference Code and Titlesort by Reference Code and Title ascending	Key (Collection)sort by Key (Collection) ascending	Dates	Record Levelsort by Record Level ascending	Hierarchysort by Hierarchy ascending
1- Personal and Biographical Materials	87280	1903-1964	Series	CollectionFitA- Alice Fitzgerald Collection
2- Correspondence	87281		Series	CollectionFitA- Alice Fitzgerald Collection
3- Diaries and Scrapbooks	87282	1903-1940	Series	CollectionFitA- Alice Fitzgerald Collection
4- Alice Fitzgerald Photographs	87283	1915-1919, 1915-1940	Series	CollectionFitA- Alice Fitzgerald Collection
5- Material Evidence	87284	1889-1940	Series	CollectionFitA- Alice Fitzgerald Collection

Related Artifacts

Found 22 record(s)

Available Actions	Artifact Numbersort by Artifact Number ascending	Titlesort by Title ascending
	700A	For Miniature Red Cross Florence Nightingale Award
	708A	American Nurses Memorial
	709A	Johns Hopkins Hospital 50th Anniversary
	710A	Aux Dames de la Croix Rouge
	712A	Marie Depage and Edith Cavell
	717A	Maltese Cross
	718A	Marie Depage and Edith Cavell
	1592A	Polish Red Cross Nursing Education
	1593A	British War Medal
	1594A	Merit Cross of the Hungarian Red Cross
	1595A	Edith Cavell Memorial Nurse
	1596A	Inter-Allied Victory, British Issue
	1597A	Medal of the Ministry of War
	1599A	Medal Commemorative of the Great War
	1600A	Italian Red Cross
	1601A	British Royal Red Cross, second class
	1602A	Inter-Allied Victory, French Issue
	1603A	French Medal of Recognition
	1800A	Edith Cavell Medal Frame
	1802A	Chinese Medal
	1804A	International Red Cross Florence Nightingale Award
	1805A	Order of the Serbian Red Cross

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