Anna Caroline Maxwell (March 14, 1851 - January 2, 1929), was a nurse who came to be known by the nickname "the American Florence Nightingale". Her pioneering activities were crucial to the growth of professional nursing in the U.S.
Early career
With no formal training, Maxwell first entered the nursing field as a matron at New England Hospital in [1874]]. She left in 1876 and spent two years in England before enrolling at Boston City Hospital Training School for Nurses. In 1880 she was hired to start a training school at Montreal General Hospital. In 1881, she was offered the superintendency of the Training School for Nurses at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. In 1889, she moved to New York to be director of nursing at St. Luke's Hospital, and from there became superintendent of nursing at the Presbyterian Hospital of New York from 1892-1921. Maxwell was also the first director of the Presbyterian Hospital's nursing school, founded in 1892, which later became the Columbia University School of Nursing. Eleanor Lee writes in the "History of the School of Nursing of the Presbyterian Hospital, New York, 1892-1942", that Maxwell, born in New York but of Scottish descent, was recruited for the postion by Mr. John Stewart Kennedy, a wealthy Scottish financier who was then serving as the Presbyterian Hospital's President of the Board of Trustees. In the school's early years, Mr. Kennedy donated $1 million for construction of a dormitory for the nurses.
Connection to Greenwich, Connecticut
John Stewart Kennedy's banking firm was later passed on to his nephew, J. Kennedy Tod, who continued Stewart's interest in the well-being of Miss Maxwell and the Presbyterian Hospital nurses. Eleanor Lee writes that beginning in 1901 and continuing through 1913, Mr. Tod made available Innis Arden, his estate in Greenwich, Connecticut, to the nurses as a summer retreat, and that from 1906 through 1913 the nurses had the exclusive summer use of the Innis Arden Cottage, a beachside cottage there. Maxwell was photographed with her nurses at Innis Arden Cottage in 1907 and 1911 by Dr. C. Irving Fisher, the Presbyterian Hospital's medical director and an accomplished amateur photographer. Many of Dr. Fisher's photographs of Maxwell and her nurses, including photographs of them at Innis Arden Cottage, survive in the archives of the George Eastman House, Rochester, New York. Upon Tod's death in 1925, he left his estate, Innis Arden, to the Presbyterian Hospital, which later sold it to the town of Greenwich, Connecticut, where it is now known as Greenwich Point.
Wartime activities
In the Spanish-American War she organized nurses for the military. Through her actions, the Army Nurse Corps was established and nurses were later given the rank of officer. She helped design the uniform for US army nurses. During World War I, France awarded her the Medaille de l'Hygiene Publique (Medal of honor for Public Health). In addition to her work in education and with the military, she co-wrote a textbook with Amy E. Pope entitled Practical Nursing. The first building to open at the new Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in 1928 was the home for the university's nursing school. It was named the "Anna C. Maxwell Hall" in her honor. Maxwell Hall was razed in 1984 to make room for a new hospital building, and the university established an endowed professorship at the nursing school in Maxwell's name. Maxwell was one of the first women buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Columbia University awarded her an honorary Master of Arts degree.
