Notable Faculty
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Isabel Adams Hampton
Isabel Adams Hampton was born in Welland, Ontario on August 26, 1859. At age 17, she started work as a public school teacher in Merritton, Ontario. She received her diploma from Bellevue Training School for Nurses in New York in 1883. Upon graduation, she briefly served as the substitute for the Superintendent of Nurses in the Women’s Hospital (now part of the Mount Sinai-St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center consortium in New York City).
In 1886 she moved to Chicago where she served as the superintendent for the Illinois Training School for Nurses.
In 1889 she came to the newly opened Johns Hopkins Hospital, where she was the first Superintendent of Nurses and Principal of the Training School. That same year, she organized the Nurses section for the International Congress of Charities, Corrections, and Philanthropy for the Chicago World’s Fair. She also was a member of the Maryland committee on women’s exhibits for the fair, focusing on the work of her nurses. In 1894 she left Johns Hopkins and married Dr. Hunter Robb, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital. They moved to Cleveland, Ohio, and had two sons–Hampton born in 1895 and Phillip born in 1902.
She became the first president of the Nurses’ Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada, what is now the American Nurses Association. She helped found the American Journal of Nurses. Also an accomplished author in the field, she wrote the books Nursing Ethics in 1900 and Educational Standards for Nurses in 1907. She was President of the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses. She died April 15, 1910.
Helen Scott Hay
Helen Scott Hay was born January 5, 1869 in Lanark, Illinois. She graduated from Northwestern University in her early 20s and from the Illinois Training School for Nurses in 1895 at the age of 26. This led to a storied career in the nursing profession. She worked as head nurse at the Iowa State Hospital for the Insane, now the Independence State Hospital. From there she became the superintendent of nurses at the Cook County Insane Asylum, now known as the Chicago-Read Mental Health Center. She went on to become Superintendent for the Illinois Training School for Nurses between 1906 and 1912.
In 1914, she began working for the Red Cross. Her first job was to oversee logistics for 120 nurses and 30 surgeons to be sent to Europe as part of the war effort. Each band had 12 nurses and 3 physicians each. Two groups were sent to England, two to France, and two to Russia. She and her groups left New York in 1914 on the steamship Hamburg. Thanks to her service and expertise, media outlets like the Joliet News even called her “the American Florence Nightingale” for her work in the war effort. In her service, Helen Scott Hay was given the title Chief Nurse of the Red Cross Commission to the Balkans. While working on the Eastern Front, she came to know Queen Eleanor of Bulgaria. The two worked together to set up a nurses’ training school in Sofia, Bulgaria, and for her work Hay received the gold cross of Saint Anne by the Russian government in 1915, the Regina Maria from the Romanian government, and the Bulgarian Royal Red Cross in 1919. She received a Nightingale Medal in 1920 for “great and exceptional devotion to the sick and wounded in peace and war.”
She was named Chief Nurse of the American Red Cross Commission to Europe in February 1920. This covered Poland, the Balkans, Czechoslovakia and France. She retired in 1922 and died November 25, 1932 in Savanna, Illinois.
She was buried with military honors in Oakville Cemetery near Mt. Carroll, Illinois. The American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Red Cross, and the American armed forces were all present at her funeral.
Mary C. Wheeler
Mary Wheeler served as superintendent of the Illinois Training School for Nurses from 1913 to 1924. When she left the ITSN, she became the executive secretary of the Michigan State Nurses’ Association for a decade.
In 1934 she became Director of the Good Will-Cook County School of Occupational Therapy. A passionate proponent of occupational therapy, Wheeler had previously started something called the “Cheer Shop,” where people, particularly children, who needed to rebuild muscle after long illnesses could play with toys, art supplies, and cooking equipment. She spent 2 years at the St. Louis school of Occupational Therapy and one year in practice at the Women’s Municipal Home in Chicago.
She emphasized independence for people by strengthening atrophied muscles and encouraging creativity and expression.
