Alice Fitzgerald
Alice Louise Florence Fitzgerald ARRC (March 13, 1875 — November 10, 1962) was an American nurse who served in Europe during and after World War I. She earned a Florence Nightingale Medal from the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1927, for her achievements.
Early life
On March 13, 1875, Fitzgerald was born as Alice Louise Florence Fitzgerald in Florence, Italy. Fitzgerald's American parents were Charles H. Fitzgerald and Alice Riggs Lawrdson, both from Baltimore.[1]
Education
Fitzgerald studied in Europe before attending Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, graduating in the class of 1906.[2] The several languages she learned in a European childhood would prove useful in her adult work. Fitzgerald was fluent in English, French, German, and Italian.[1][3]
Career
Fitzgerald returned to Italy in 1908 to assist the Italian Red Cross in the aftermath of an earthquake in Messina, volunteer work for which she received the Italian Red Cross Disaster Relief Medal.[1][4] She was head nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital from 1909 to 1910, at Bellevue Hospital from 1910 to 1912, with further supervisory posts in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Indianapolis, and Wellesley, Massachusetts.[2][5][6]
During World War I, she was named the first "Edith Cavell Memorial nurse" from Massachusetts, funded to work with the British Queen Alexandra Imperial Military Nursing Service at
She worked in Asia in the 1920s, advising the Governor General of the Philippines on public health nursing, and founding a nursing program at Baguio.[1][14][15] She did further earthquake relief in Japan after the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake. She started a nursing school in Bangkok in 1924, and studied nursing programs in Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, and China.[2] In 1927, she was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal by the International Committee of the Red Cross.[16]
Back in the United States, she was director of nurses at
Fitzgerald retired in 1948.
Personal life
Fitzgerald died in 1962, at Peabody Nursing Home in New York City, New York. Fitzgerald was 87 years old.[2]
Legacy
Fitzgerald's papers, including diaries, photographs, and medals, are archived at Johns Hopkins,
Awards and decorations
- Florence Nightingale Medal
- French Honour medal for courage and devotion
- Medal of French Gratitude
- Silver Medal of the Polish Red Cross
- Serbian Red Cross medal
- Italian Red Cross Disaster Relief medal
- Russian Red Cross medal
- British Royal Red Cross medal
- British Campaign medal
- British Victory medal[19]
References
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-860669-7. Retrieved 13 January 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g Alice Fitzgerald Collection Archived 14 January 2019 at the Wayback Machine, in the Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.
- ^ "This Way Forward: Alice Fitzgerald (1876-1962)" Johns Hopkins Nursing (July 28, 2014).
- ISBN 9780826126726
- ^ a b American National Red Cross, History of American Red Cross Nursing (Macmillan 1922): 583-595; 1082-1084.
- ^ "Former Indianapolis Nurse Will Enter English Service" Indianapolis Medical Journal (March 15, 1916): 105-106.
- ^ "The Balkan Commission" American Journal of Nursing 20(1920): 136.
- ^ "Chief Nurse of Red Cross League" Red Cross Bulletin (October 20, 1919): 7.
- ^ "Alice Fitzgerald Given an Important Position" American Journal of Nursing 20(1920): 181-182.
- ^ "Miss Fitzgerald Will Go to the Philippines" Pacific Coast Journal of Nursing (April 1922): 228-229.
- ^ "American Nurse Honored by Red Cross" Modern Hospital (January 1920): 56.
- ^ ISBN 9781784996321
- ^ "Miss Alice Fitzgerald, of the League of Red Cross Societies" Public Health Nursing (August 1920): 573-574.
- ^ B. L. Brush, "Conflicting agendas: Alice Fitzgerald and Philippine public health nursing" Nursing Research 44(3)(May–June 1995): 190-191.
- ^ Stephanie S. Bator, "The Rockefeller Foundation and the Philippine Islands, 1913-1935" Archived 2016-02-28 at the Wayback Machine (2010), report to the Rockefeller Archive Center.
- ^ "The Florence Nightingale Medal" American Journal of Nursing (September 1949): 580. DOI: 10.2307/3458447
- ^ B. B. Scher, "Alice and her wonderlands: Alice Fitzgerald pioneered in nursing wherever the world offered an opportunity" American Journal of Nursing 61(June 1961): 74-76.
- ^ Iris Noble, Nurse Around the World: Alice Fitzgerald (Julian Messner 1967).
- ^ Women's Overseas Service League (1923). Carry on, Volumes 2-6. The League. pp. 17–18.
External links
- Christine Hallett, "Dedicated to Alice Fitzgerald", a memorial page at the National Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme, illustrated with another photograph of Fitzgerald.
- Katherine Burger Johnson, "Called to Serve: American Nurses Go to War, 1914-1918" (Master's thesis, University of Louisville 1993).