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Early on, nurse leaders saw the need for nurses to unite. Isabel Adams Hampton, a superintendent of the Illinois Training School for Nurses, who then founded the Johns Hopkins Training School for Nurses, attended the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. During the Exposition, multiple talks were presented, including talks by nurses in a nursing section chaired by Hampton. Edith Draper, superintendent of the Illinois Training School for Nurses, stated: “I know that to every thinking woman among us, the needs for a national organization are becoming more and more strongly realized, until now our success for the future depends on our unity” (Draper, 1894, p. 569). Hampton and others proposed forming an association. The 18 women present at the Chicago Exposition meeting, superintendents of nurse training schools across the country, founded the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses, now known as the National League for Nursing (NLN).

But these nurse leaders knew of the need for regular working nurses, not just superintendents, to have an association of their own. In 1896, 3 years after the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses was formed, 12 representatives from the society met with 12 members of nurse training school alumnae associations in Brooklyn, New York. There they formed the Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada, now the American Nurses Association ANA. Isabel Adams Hampton was elected the first President (Keeling, Hehman, & Kirchgessner, 2018).

African American women during these times did not have the opportunities open to Whites. Nurses' training was rarely open to Black women in White hospitals and, likewise, the fledgling professional nursing organizations were not open to Blacks in all parts of the U.S. Thus, the leadership of such women as Martha Franklin, who graduated as a nurse in 1897, is all the more impressive. In 1907, Franklin, an African American graduate of the nurse training school of the Women's Hospital of Philadelphia, personally wrote 1,500 letters to Black nurses throughout the United States asking about forming a society. In 1908, 52 Black nurses met in New York and founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. Franklin was the first president. At the close of the first meeting, Lillian Wald invited the women to the Henry Street Settlement House for lunch and to offer support and mentorship (Keeling et al., 2018).

Lillian Wald was among those nurses who established another significant nursing organization, the National Organization of Public Health Nurses. In 1911, a committee, formed of members of the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses and the Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada, met to standardize the field of public health nursing. They wrote to over a thousand organizations that employed public health nurses and, at the 1912 meetings of the two organizations held in Chicago, the public health organization was formed (Kandel, 1920). Wald, considered to be the founder of public health nursing, became the first president (Keeling, et al., 2018). It is instructive to appreciate how important public health nursing was at this time. We might think that nurses mainly worked in hospitals prior to quite recently—but they didn't. Nurses have been actively involved with public health, working to promote health and support home care, for centuries. In terms of leadership, these pioneers who founded early nursing organizations deserve our respect for their imagination and sense of purpose. Today, nursing organizations present a rich source of support for all nurses. Many nurses join a general national organization, such as the ANA, as well as one that is specific to their nursing specialty.

The following Table 3.1 lists just a few of the scores of national nursing professional organizations, beginning with the oldest, the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses.

Table 3.1 Professional Nursing Organizations Compiled by B. Lusk

Year founded	Organization
1893	American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools for Nurses—now the National League for Nursing
1896	Nurses' Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada—now the American Nurses Association
1908	National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses—merged with the American Nurses Association in 1951
1912	National Organization of Public Health Nurses—merged with the National League for Nursing in 1951
1922	Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing—now Sigma
1931	American Association of Nurse Anesthetists
1941	American Association of Nurse Midwives—merged with the American College of Nurse Midwives in 1969
1952	National Student Nurses Association
1955	American College of Nurse‐Midwives
1967	American Organization of Nurse Executives
1969	American Association of Colleges of Nursing
1971	American Assembly for Men in Nursing
1971	National Black Nurses Association, Inc.
1978	American Association for the History of Nursing
1985	American Association of Nurse Practitioners
1995	National Association of Clinical Nurse Specialists