The History of Nursing in North Carolina

Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1938. First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover in Dust Jacket. Very Good in a Good Dust Jacket..

Blue-green cloth with gilt titles and decoration. The bindings are tight and square. Text clean, light even toning. Moderate shelf handling wear. 8.5 inches tall; 151 pages with an index. B/W photo illustrations. The Dust Jacket has handling wear with age-toning and loss on the spine tips and minor loss on the corners. First Edition, First Printing.. Signed by 11 nurses each with their hometown noted. Owner's name also on front pastedown. Several of the names are also included in the index and have biographies in the text. [Henderson, L. Eugenia; Pickard, Emily J., Ross; Clara, Heinzerling, Edna L.; Lofton, Mary; and Dunn, Birdie.]

Background Information:
The author Mary Lewis Wyche was born on February 26, 1858 near Henderson in Vance County. As a young woman, she wanted to become a nurse but was thwarted by both family obligations and the absence of any schools of nursing in North Carolina.

Her calling to become a nurse was so great that when she was able, she moved to Philadelphia to study nursing and graduated from Philadelphia General Hospital Training School in 1894.

Upon graduation, she returned to the Tarheel State and revolutionized the nursing profession (Rogers, 1949). Wyche should be fondly remembered by NC nurses for four primary achievements: the establishment of the first school of nursing in NC, the creation of the first professional nursing organization in the state, the passage of the first nurse registration law in the country and for writing the only book about the history of nursing in North Carolina.