Bellevue Alumnae Center for Nursing History
Limited Edition Nursing Pins
Edith H. Smith - 2004
Edith H. Smith, an adamant believer that nurses must control nursing education, dedicated her life to nursing education and the promotion of public health nursing. She served in the Navy (1917-1919) as part of the Stanford Medical Unit, reaching the rank of Second Lieutenant. She was instrumental in the recruitment and training of military nurses during World War II, working in the Federal Office of Defense Health and Welfare Services. She held the experimental position of College Recruitment Representative for the east coast under the National Nursing Council for War Service. Highly respected for excellence, in 1943 she was appointed the first Dean of Syracuse University's new School of Nursing. She was responsible for the approval of the baccalaureate program by the National Organization of Public Health Nursing, the early integration of African-American and Japanese-American students and the founding of a Master's Nursing Program at SU in the early 1950s.
