Cora E. Simpson

Cora E. Simpson
Five women standing in a row outdoors. The women at the center is the tallest, and is a white woman wearing a white dress. The rest are Chinese women, wearing trousers and long smocks.
Cora E. Simpson (center), with four Chinese women graduates of the Florence Nightingale Training School in Fuzhou, from a 1913 publication.
Born
Cora Eliza Simpson

February 13, 1880
Oberlin, Kansas
DiedMay 14, 1960(1960-05-14) (aged 80)
Chelsea, Michigan
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)nurse, nursing educator, medical missionary
Notable workA Joy Ride Through China for the N. A. C. (1926)

Cora Eliza Simpson (February 13, 1880 – May 14, 1960) was an American nurse and nursing educator. She was a missionary in China from 1907 to 1945, and founded and ran the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing in Fuzhou. She was also a founder of the Nurses' Association of China.

Early life

Cora Simpson was born near Oberlin, Kansas, the daughter of George Mathew Simpson and Rhoda Rosina Simpson.[1] She trained as a nurse at the Nebraska Deaconess Hospital in Omaha,[2] with further training in Chicago, and courses in public health nursing at Simmons College in Boston.[3]

Her youngest sister, Mabel Ellen Simpson, followed her into nursing and missionary work in Asia. Mabel Simpson spent thirteen years as a Methodist nurse in India before she married in 1939.[4]

Career

Simpson joined the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church,[5] and was a missionary in China from 1907 until 1944.[6] She founded and ran the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing in Fuzhou.[7] and was superintendent at the Magaw Memorial Hospital and Nurses' Home.[8][9] "When I came to China I was told that China did not need and was not ready for nurses," she wrote in 1913. "After a day in the hospital and a few visits out into the homes, I decided there were few things that China did need as much as nurses."[10] In 1911, 1917-1918 and 1926-1927, she spent time on furlough, speaking about her work at churches and to other community groups.[11][12][13][14]

Simpson was a co-founder[3][15][16] and, later, general secretary of the Nurses' Association of China (N. A. C.).[17][18] She represented the association at international nursing conferences in Finland in 1925[19] and in France in 1933. She wrote about her early experiences in China in a memoir, A Joy Ride Through China for the N. A. C. (1926).[20] In 1947, she was named N. A. C.'s general secretary emeritus, in honor of her lifetime of service.[6]

Personal life

Simpson returned to the United States in 1945, and settled in Michigan.[21] She lectured about her time in China in her later years,[22] and died in 1960, in Chelsea, Michigan, aged 80 years. She is remembered by nursing historians as "a key contributor to modern nursing in China".[9]

References

  1. ^ "Guide Rock". Omaha Daily Bee. November 21, 1907. p. 3. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. ^ "Omaha, Neb". The Trained Nurse and Hospital Review. 37: 45–46. July 1906.
  3. ^ a b Sasaki, Motoe (2016-10-18). Redemption and Revolution: American and Chinese New Women in the Early Twentieth Century. Cornell University Press. pp. 73–77. ISBN 9781501706813.
  4. ^ "Methodist Mission Convention Opens". The Lincoln Star. October 13, 1933. p. 15. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ Vautrin, Minnie (2008). Terror in Minnie Vautrin's Nanjing: Diaries and Correspondence, 1937-38. University of Illinois Press. pp. 253, note 11. ISBN 9780252033322.
  6. ^ a b Hanink, Elizabeth. "Cora Simpson: Missionary Nurse in China". Working Nurse. Retrieved 2019-11-02.
  7. ^ Jamme, Anna C. (May 1923). "Nursing Education in China". The American Journal of Nursing. 23 (8): 666–675. doi:10.2307/3406837. JSTOR 3406837.
  8. ^ Simpson, Cora E. (October 1923). "God Has Us On His Heart". Woman's Missionary Friend. pp. 353–354. Retrieved November 2, 2019.
  9. ^ a b Yuhong, Jiang (2017-01-10). "Shaping modern nursing development in China before 1949". International Journal of Nursing Sciences. Development and Inheritance. 4 (1): 19–23. doi:10.1016/j.ijnss.2016.12.009. ISSN 2352-0132. PMC 6626073. PMID 31406712.
  10. ^ Simpson, Cora E. (December 1913). "Does China Need Nurses?". The American Journal of Nursing. 14: 191–194.
  11. ^ "Untitled news item". The Red Cloud Chief. May 11, 1911. p. 1. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ "Missionary". The Bedford Daily Democrat. April 11, 1917. p. 2. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ "Missionary Speaks". The South Bend Tribune. February 22, 1918. p. 16. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ^ "Nurses to Hear Noted Speakers at Conference". The Capital Times. October 2, 1926. p. 9. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ^ Watt, John (2004). "Breaking into Public Service: The Development of Nursing in Modern China, 1870-1949". Nursing History Review. 12: 69–71. doi:10.1891/1062-8061.12.1.67. ISBN 9780826114655. S2CID 28773716.
  16. ^ Goodnow, Minnie (1916). Outlines of Nursing History. Saunders. pp. 258. Simpson nurses China.
  17. ^ Grypma, Sonya (2008). Healing Henan: Canadian Nurses at the North China Mission, 1888-1947. UBC Press. pp. 113–114. ISBN 9780774858212.
  18. ^ Lin, Evelyn (January 1938). "Nursing in China". The American Journal of Nursing. 38 (1): 1–8. doi:10.2307/3413602. JSTOR 3413602.
  19. ^ "Personal Mention". Woman's Missionary Friend. 38: 168. May 1924.
  20. ^ Simpson, Cora E (1926). A joy ride through China for the N.A.C. Shanghai: Kwang Hsueh Pub. House. OCLC 34951971.
  21. ^ "Miss Simpson Will Address Religion Rally". Detroit Free Press. April 21, 1945. p. 7. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ^ "Lecture on China". The Escanaba Daily Press. May 19, 1945. p. 9. Retrieved November 2, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.