Virginia Henderson is regarded by many as the first lady of nursing. The woman who has been called "the 20th century Florence Nightingale" wrote many nursing textbooks, including "The Principles and Practice of Nursing." Henderson felt that her most important contribution was compiling the Nursing Studies Index, which listed all documented writings on nursing produced between 1900 and 1959. Henderson, born on this date in 1897, worked on the index for 11 years while teaching at the Yale School of Nursing. In honor of "the greatest nurse advocate for libraries," Sigma Theta Tau (the international honor society for nursing) named its nursing library after her.

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