In September 1883, the Board of Guardians of Philadelphia General Hospital decided to establish a training school for nurses. Two experienced English nurses, Alice Fisher and Edith A. Horner, were brought to Philadelphia to organize the school, which officially opened in January 1885. The Training School for Nurses and the Philadelphia General Hospital were closed in 1977.
Over the years, the curriculum of the Training School for Nurses went through significant changes. At first, the program could be completed in one year; eventually, the program was expanded to include three years of course work. Other changes occurred in 1904, when Margaret Francis Donohoe became the Superintendent of Nurses. During Donohoe's tenure, the Nurses' Library was opened, classes were moved from evenings to the daytime, and students were given time off on Sundays. In 1911, the school began admitting students for post graduate study, and in 1926, with the financial assistance of the Rockefeller Foundation, the school established foreign affiliates in Poland and South America.
The first Nurses' Home at Philadelphia General Hospital was completed in 1893. As the student body continued to grow, a new, larger Nurses' Home was built in 1919. In the early 1920s, the number of students at the school doubled, from 132 students in 1920 to 259 students in 1926. By 1931, the school had certified almost 2,000 nurses. In 1973, a TriInstitutional building was erected to serve the needs of the nursing schools at the Philadelphia General Hospital, the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, and Children's Hospital.
From the guide to the Philadelphia General Hospital Training School for Nurses duty registers, 1885-1911, (College of Physicians Historical Medical Library)
