Alice Fitzgerald
{{Short description|American nurse (1875–1962)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox medical person
| name = Alice Fitzgerald
| image = AliceFitzgerald1920.jpg
| image_size =
| alt =
| caption = Fitzgerald in uniform, from a 1920 publication
| birth_name = Alice Louise Florence Fitzgerald
| birth_date = {{birth date |1875|03|13}}
| birth_place = Florence, Italy
| death_date = {{death date and age |1962|11|10|1875|03|13}}
| death_place = New York City
| nationality = American
| education = Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Nursing
| occupation = registered nurse
| years_active = 1908-1948
| known_for = Leadership in nursing, in Europe during and after World War I, and in Asia in the 1920s
}}
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.{{cite book |url=http://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1200280 |title=Alice Fitzgerald (13 March 1875 - 10 November 1962) |publisher=American National Biography |first=Elizabeth Noble |last=Shor |year=2000 |doi=10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1200280 |isbn=978-0-19-860669-7 |accessdate=January 13, 2019}}
Education
Fitzgerald studied in Europe before attending Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, graduating in the class of 1906.[https://medicalarchives.jhmi.edu:8443/papers/fitzgerald.html Alice Fitzgerald Collection] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190114100537/https://medicalarchives.jhmi.edu:8443/papers/fitzgerald.html |date=14 January 2019 }}, in the Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. 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.[https://magazine.nursing.jhu.edu/2014/07/this-way-forward-alice-fitzgerald-1876-1962/ "This Way Forward: Alice Fitzgerald (1876-1962)"] Johns Hopkins Nursing (July 28, 2014).
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.Anna La Torre, [https://books.google.com/books?id=FPDcCQAAQBAJ&dq=Alice+Fitzgerald+nurse&pg=PA50 "The 1908 Italian Earthquake"] in Arlene Wynbeek Keeling, Barbra Mann Wall, eds. Nurses and Disasters: Global, Historical Case Studies (Springer Publishing 2015): 49-53. {{ISBN|9780826126726}} 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.American National Red Cross, [https://archive.org/details/historyamerican00servgoog/page/n636 History of American Red Cross Nursing] (Macmillan 1922): 583-595; 1082-1084.[https://books.google.com/books?id=UrlXAAAAMAAJ&dq=Alice+Fitzgerald+nurse&pg=PA105 "Former Indianapolis Nurse Will Enter English Service"] Indianapolis Medical Journal (March 15, 1916): 105-106.
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 Boulogne and Méaulte from 1916 to 1917, and then with the American Red Cross. Outside France, she served at a refugee hospital in Rimini. Her postwar work included organizing nursing schools, recruiting bilingual nurses, serving as Chief Nurse of the American Red Cross in Europe,[https://books.google.com/books?id=t9IAAAAAYAAJ&dq=Alice+Fitzgerald+nurse&pg=PA136 "The Balkan Commission"] American Journal of Nursing 20(1920): 136.[https://books.google.com/books?id=Y15LAQAAMAAJ&dq=Alice+Fitzgerald+nurse&pg=RA1-PA77 "Chief Nurse of Red Cross League"] Red Cross Bulletin (October 20, 1919): 7. and as Director of the Nursing Bureau of the League of Red Cross Societies in Geneva.[https://books.google.com/books?id=t9IAAAAAYAAJ&dq=Alice+Fitzgerald+nurse&pg=PA181 "Alice Fitzgerald Given an Important Position"] American Journal of Nursing 20(1920): 181-182. She founded the International School for Public Health Nurses.[https://books.google.com/books?id=1ncXAQAAIAAJ&dq=Alice+Fitzgerald+nurse&pg=PA228 "Miss Fitzgerald Will Go to the Philippines"] Pacific Coast Journal of Nursing (April 1922): 228-229. For her efforts, Fitzgerald was awarded medals and honors by Great Britain (Royal Red Cross second class),[https://books.google.com/books?id=HGEhAQAAMAAJ&dq=Alice+Fitzgerald+nurse&pg=PA56 "American Nurse Honored by Red Cross"] Modern Hospital (January 1920): 56. France (Medaille d'honneur and other decorations), Italy, Poland, Serbia, Hungary, and Russia.Christine E. Hallett, [https://books.google.com/books?id=cwonDAAAQBAJ&dq=Alice+Fitzgerald+American+Journal+of+Nursing+1920&pg=PT227 Nurse Writers of the Great War] (Oxford University Press 2016): notes 14 and 15. {{ISBN|9781784996321}}[https://books.google.com/books?id=Hv7nAAAAMAAJ&dq=Alice+Fitzgerald+nurse&pg=PA573 "Miss Alice Fitzgerald, of the League of Red Cross Societies"] Public Health Nursing (August 1920): 573-574.
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.B. L. Brush, "Conflicting agendas: Alice Fitzgerald and Philippine public health nursing" Nursing Research 44(3)(May–June 1995): 190-191.Stephanie S. Bator, [http://rockarch.org/publications/resrep/bator2.pdf "The Rockefeller Foundation and the Philippine Islands, 1913-1935"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160228164019/http://www.rockarch.org/publications/resrep/bator2.pdf |date=2016-02-28 }} (2010), report to the Rockefeller Archive Center. 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. In 1927, she was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal by the International Committee of the Red Cross.[https://www.jstor.org/stable/3458447?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=Martha&searchText=M.&searchText=Russell&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Fpagemark%3DcGFnZU1hcms9Mg%253D%253D%26amp%3BQuery%3DMartha%2BM.%2BRussell%26amp%3Bmeta_fastly_client_ip%3D76.168.176.255%26amp%3Bmeta_referer%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.jstor.org%252Fstable%252F3402445%253Fseq%253D1%26amp%3Bsd%3D%26amp%3BsearchType%3DfacetSearch%26amp%3Bmeta_jstor_requestid%3Dsearch%253A63ab1d642e2ddc91404f00126d48a284%26amp%3Bmeta_user_agent%3DMozilla%252F5.0%2B%2528Macintosh%253B%2BIntel%2BMac%2BOS%2BX%2B10.14%253B%2Brv%253A64.0%2529%2BGecko%252F20100101%2BFirefox%252F64.0%26amp%3Bed%3D&ab_segments=0%2Fdefault-1%2Frelevance_config_with_defaults&refreqid=search%3A115edd526d9a663f152e0b03c7c43c62#page_scan_tab_contents "The Florence Nightingale Medal"] American Journal of Nursing (September 1949): 580. DOI: 10.2307/3458447
Back in the United States, she was director of nurses at Polyclinic Hospital in New York (from 1930 to 1936), and a housemother at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital in the 1940s.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.
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.
= Legacy =
Fitzgerald's papers, including diaries, photographs, and medals, are archived at Johns Hopkins, with another collection of her papers, including an unpublished memoir, at the Maryland Historical Society. A biography for young readers, Nurse Around the World: Alice Fitzgerald by Iris Noble, was published in 1967.Iris Noble, [https://archive.org/stream/nursearoundworld00nobl Nurse Around the World: Alice Fitzgerald] (Julian Messner 1967).
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{{cite book|author=Women's Overseas Service League|title=Carry on, Volumes 2-6|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=crXvAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA17-PA18|year=1923|publisher=The League|pages=17–18}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- Christine Hallett, [https://www.1418now.org.uk/somme100/gallery/professor-christine-hallett-alice-fitzgerald "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, [https://ir.library.louisville.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1700&context=etd "Called to Serve: American Nurses Go to War, 1914-1918"] (Master's thesis, University of Louisville 1993).
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Category:American women nurses
Category:Johns Hopkins School of Nursing alumni
Category:American women in World War I