Julia Catherine Stimson

Julia Catherine Stimson (May 26, 1881 – September 30, 1948) was an American nurse, credited as one of several persons who brought nursing to the status of a profession. Early life Julia Catherine Stimson was born in Worcester, Massachusetts 26 May 1881. Her parents were the Reverend Henry A. Stimson and Alice Bartlett Stimson. She had five siblings: Dr. Barbara B. Stimson, Dr Philip M. Stimson, Elsie Stimson Smith, Lucile Stimson Harvey and Henry B. Stimson. She was also first cousin to Secretary of War and Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson. She received her bachelor's degree from Vassar College in 1901, then received a degree from the New York Hospital Training School for Nurses in 1908. She held a number of administrative posts in New York City and Missouri, where she received her master's degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 1917. She volunteered for military service in April 1917. Military career As superintendent of the Army Nurse Corps during World War I, Stimson became the first woman to attain the rank of Major (United States) in the United States Army. Mary T. Sarnecky, author of A History of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps (Penn Press, 1993) wrote, "Stimson actively lived a feminist ideology in several singularly oppressive and paternalistic contexts--the upper-class Victorian home, the turn-of-the-century hospital setting and the military establishment of the early 20th century."