School of Nursing Scrapbook 1979

CITATION

The university as an academic community and social entity has the responsibility to carry forward the search for universal truth and has the accompanying co1TTTiitment to recognize those who have through their efforts made significant contributions toward the dissemination of such truth. Convinced that the heritage of the nursing profession must be preserved and transmitted to its future members, Mary Ann Garrigan sensitized and raised the level of consciousness of American nurses to a realization and appreciation of the significance of that heritage. She singlehandedly began a systematic search for an accumulation of original records of historical movements in nursing; salvaged and assiduously gathered from dustbins, basements and boxes earmarked for discard these rare out-of-print, never to be duplicated historical materials and artifacts, which form the nucleus of the now prestigious collection in the scholarly Nursing Archive of the Boston University Hugar Memorial Library. Carrying her beliefs to American nurses, she obtained their overwhelming support which resulted in the identification of the Nursing Archive as the official depository of the papers of the American Nurses Association, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and other national and state organizations, as well as of the historical papers of the profession's oldest periodicals. Her tremendous efforts in collecting nursing memorabilia have carried her to the far corners of the nation, interviewing nursing leaders and pioneers of yesteryear and today, resulting in the creation of a valuable oral history collection which preserved their thoughts and opinions. As Chairman of the Bicentennial Co1TTTiittee of the American Nurses Association, Mary Ann Garrigan made nursing's past become alive and meaningful. Under her guidance and foresight the Bicentennial Exhibit contained a priceless and irreplaceable collection of original documents, artifacts and memorabilia of nursing's most outstanding and remarkable leaders, for the inspection of more than 10,000 visitors. The culmination of Mary Ann Garrigan's visionary leadership has been the reawakening and renewal in the American nurse of an interest in the historical origins and developments of the profession, in the preservation of source materials and the value of the historical significance which today's activities play in tomorrow's heritage. Founding faculty member of one of the nation's most esteemed schools,