Clara Dutton Noyes was born on October 3, 1869 in Port Deposit, Maryland, United States. She was the second daughter and third of nine children of Enoch and Laura Lay (Banning) Noyes. Her father, a descendant of James Noyes, a Nonconformist clergyman of Wiltshire, England, who emigrated to Massachusetts in 1634, was a gentleman farmer of excellent economic and social standing whose family had been established in Old Lyme, Connecticut, for many generations.
Clara Noyes was educated in private schools in Maryland and Connecticut. In applying for admission to the Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Nursing, she wrote that she could safely say that her education was "above average. " She was admitted promptly and graduated in 1896.
Clara began an active career that continued for the next forty years. Her first appointment was that of head nurse at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
In 1897 she became superintendent of the training school of the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston, a position which tested her leadership, initiative, and imagination. Though conditions were far from satisfactory on her arrival, at the end of three and a half years she left a school "well worth being proud of. "
In 1901 she became superintendent of the hospital and of the nurses at St. Luke's, New Bedford, Massachussets. During her incumbency a building program was commenced, the number of beds in the hospital increased from forty-five to 108, and radical changes introduced in the nursing curriculum. "It has been a joy, " she wrote, "to develop this place. " By the time she left New Bedford, Miss Noyes had demonstrated outstanding ability as an organizer, administrator, and educator.
In 1910 she was appointed general superintendent of training schools, Bellevue and Allied Hospitals, New York City, one of the most responsible positions held by a nurse in the hospital world.
Urged by Jane A. Delano, head of the American Red Cross nursing service, she accepted in 1916 the office of director of the bureau of nursing in the Red Cross's department of military relief. Her duties included organizing the nursing staffs of base hospitals and of the relief expeditions sent to the civilian populations of the Allies and selecting and assigning all the Red Cross nursing personnel serving in World War I.
Miss Delano died in 1919, and Miss Noyes was appointed her successor as director of the American Red Cross Department of Nursing, which had been created in 1918. In 1920 she began a tour of inspection of American Red Cross activities in Europe.
Miss Noyes continued as head of the Red Cross nursing service until her death, but her activities extended far beyond the duties of her official position.
Among Noyes' achievements was the establishment of a school for midwives, the first of its kind in the United States. It was chiefly her work during World War I, however, that won Clara Noyes an enduring place in American nursing. Her resulting recommendations had a far-reaching influence on the development of nursing in Europe and, later, through the League of Red Cross Societies, on nursing throughout the world. Among the offices Noyes held were president of the National League of Nursing Education, president of the American Nurses' Association, and first vice-president of the International Council of Nurses. At the time of her death she was chairman of a number of important national and international committees. In addition she received many honors, among them the Patriotic Service Medal of the National Institute of Social Sciences, the Florence Nightingale Medal of the International Committee of the Red Cross, two medals from the French government, and decorations by the Bulgarian and the Latvian Red Cross.
Quotations: “We need a strong woman in Washington! There is too much at stake now to take any chances. ”
Miss Noyes was a tall, handsome woman, aristocratic in appearance. A "typical New England character, " she possessed great tenacity of purpose, integrity, forthrightness, and moral courage. Her personality was somewhat austere, but under her cool reserve were warmth, compassion, and a charming sense of humor.
