Adair, Birdie May,

Miss Birdie May Adair graduated from the University of North Dakota in 1913 and attended the Training Camp for Nurses at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., during the summer (July 24 to September 13) of 1918. The training camp was organized under the auspices of the National Council of Defense with funding from the American Red Cross. The camp's intent was to draw female college graduates into the critically undermanned ranks of wartime nurses. Four hundred and thirty young women from 117 different colleges took instruction in anatomy, physiology, bacteriology, chemistry, dietetics & cookery, hygiene, practical nursing, history & social aspects of nursing, elementary materia medica, psychology, and physical training. Trainees went on to regular hospital training programs throughout the country, where time to graduation with a nursing diploma was reduced from the normal three to two years.