Action in Adversity in the 1930s and 1940s: Effie Taylor, Nellie Hawkinson, and Stella Goostray

Abstract The great depression of the 1930s had a devastating effect on the nursing profession. Conditions changed rapidly as clinics and public hospitals became overcrowded and public health agencies were swamped with requests to serve a society in need (1). In voluntary hospitals, nurse unemployment soared as private duty nurses found themselves no longer in demand. Concerned with the gravity of the situation, the Committee on the Distribution of Nursing Services, comprised of representatives of the National League of Nursing Education, the American Nurses Association, and the National Organization for Public Health Nursing (NOPHN), contacted the presidents of boards of trustees, hospital superintendents, and directors of nursing, urging them to use graduate nurses instead of students to staff hospitals (1).