Isabel Hampton Robb

Isabel Adams Hampton Robb (1860–1910) was an American nurse theorist, author, nursing school administrator and early leader. Hampton was the first Superintendent of Nurses at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, wrote several influential textbooks, and helped to found the organizations that became known as the National League for Nursing, the International Council of Nurses, and the American Nurses Association. Hampton also played a large role in advancing the social status of nursing through her work in developing a curriculum of more advanced training during her time at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing.

Isabel Hampton Robb
Isabel Hampton Robb
Born	August 26, 1859 Welland, Ontario
Died	April 15, 1910 Cleveland, Ohio
Cause of death	Streetcar Accident
Education	Bellevue Training School for Nurses
Occupation(s)	Superintendent of Nurses and Principal of the Training School
Years active	1889-1894
Medical career
Field	Nursing
Institutions	Johns Hopkins Hospital, Nurses' Associated Alumnae of the US and Canada
Awards	American Nurses Association Hall of Fame Inductee, NSNA Isabel Hampton Robb Leadership Award

Early Life and Career

Isabel Hampton was born in Welland, Ontario in August 26, 1859. Hampton started early in the teaching profession at the age of 17, when she taught public school in Merritton, Ontario. She attended a collegiate institution after high school, but a significant part of her early education was attained through independent study. Soon after, in 1881, Robb enrolled in the Bellevue Hospital Training School for Nurses, graduating in 1883. After graduation, she worked briefly as a nurse in New York, then went to Rome, working for a hospital that served American and European travelers. She returned to the United States as Superintendent of Nursing at the Cook County Hospital Nursing School in Chicago. During her time in Chicago, she implemented reforms which are largely still followed today. One of her most notable contributions to the system of nursing education was the implementation of a grading policy for nursing students. Students would need to prove their competency in order to receive qualifications. Before Robb's reforms, nursing had been largely taken up by lower-class women who were unable to hold other jobs.

Major Impacts on Nursing at Johns Hopkins

In 1889, Hampton was appointed the Superintendent of Nurses and Principal of the new Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, where she continued to suggest reforms, participated in teaching, and published. Because of Hampton's strong leadership and educational background, the chairman of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, William Osler, commented during the interviewing process: "Miss Isabel Hampton entered the room looking like an animated Greek statue...we knew that all was settled...Her certificates were looked at...and all was settled in a few minutes." She wrote Nursing: Its Principles and Practice. A review of the second edition of the textbook appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association and said that the textbook "stands without a competitor."

In 1893, Robb, with the assistance of Lavinia Dock, founded the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses of the United States and Canada, a precursor to the current National League for Nursing.

This book was one of the first texts to be written on nursing in America. It was crucial in establishing nursing as a legitimate and necessary profession in the medical field.
Author	Isabel Hampton Robb
Original title	Nursing: Its Principles and Practice
Subject	Nursing
Genre	Medicine
Set in	United States of America
Publication date	1909

Later life

After five years at Johns Hopkins she married Dr. Hunter Robb and followed him to his new position as professor of gynecology at Case Western Reserve University. Isabel and her husband would have two children, in 1895 and 1902 respectively. She was a key figure in the development for curriculum for the Lakeside Hospital Training School for Nurses, the nucleus for Case Western's future School of Nursing. Lakeside's program became one of the first schools to implement the teachings of Florence Nightingale. Robb also authored Nursing Ethics in 1900 and Educational Standards for Nurses in 1907. In a 1901 review of Nursing Ethics, the Baltimore American said, "This text-book differs from any other on the market at the present time, in that it deals simply with the principles and practice of nursing, and omits the usual smattering of teaching on a great variety of subjects. The author particularly insists that for thorough training in nursing it is necessary that each nurse should be supplied with various additional books, each dealing with a single subject, such as anatomy, physiology, materia medica, massage, bandaging and invalid cookery, which are quite distinct from, although supplementary to, the principles of nursing. Robb died on April 15, 1910 following an accident involving a streetcar.

Nursing leadership

In addition to serving as president of the organization that would become the National League for Nursing, Robb was among the group that established the American Journal of Nursing. She was also a founding member of the International Council of Nurses as well as the first president of the Nurses' Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada. The latter organization would later become the American Nurses Association. She also helped to create a graduate hospital economics course at Columbia University Teachers College.

Awards and honors

1976: Inductee, American Nurses Association Hall of Fame

Works

• Hampton, Isabel Adams (1894). Nursing: Its Principles and Practice for Hospital and Private Use. W.B. Saunders. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Robb, Isabel Hampton (1900). Nursing Ethics. Cleveland: E.C. Koeckert. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Robb, Isabel Hampton (1907). Educational Standards for Nurses. Cleveland: E.C. Koeckert. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

See also

• History of nursing in the United States

Further reading

• Gilfether C. The age of nursing. CWRU Magazine - Fall 1998. Link
• James, Janet Wilson. "Isabel Hampton and the Professionalization of Nursing in the 1890s," in Morris J. Vogel and Charles E. Rosenberg, eds. Therapeutic Revolution: Essays in the Social History of American Medicine (1979) pp 201–244
• Kaufman M et al. Dictionary of American medical biography. Greenwood Press, Westport CN, vol 2. Page 640.
• Ramos, Mary Carol. "The Johns Hopkins Training School For Nurses: A Tale Of Vision, Labor, And Futility," Nursing History Review (1997), Vol. 5, pp 23–48.

External links

• "The Isabel Hampton Robb Collection" at The Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives of The Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions