Background
Mary Beard was born on November 14, 1876, in Dover, New Hampshire, where her father was an Episcopal rector. The third daughter and fourth of five children born to Ithamar Warren Beard and Marcy (Foster) Beard, she grew up in a cultivated but modest home, where social service and education were highly valued and where she acquired a lifelong habit of wide reading. In childhood when she was very ill with diphtheria, a trained nurse, the first she had ever seen, came from New York to supervise her convalescence. So greatly was she impressed by this nurse that she decided to be a nurse when she grew up.
Education
After being educated in the public schools of Dover, Mary held a tutoring position in a private home in Boston and, in 1899, at the age of twenty-three, she entered the New York Hospital School of Nursing. She graduated in 1903.
Career
After graduation Mary became a visiting nurse with the Waterbury (Connecticut) Visiting Nurse Association (1904 - 1909). After a brief interlude in the Laboratory of Surgical Pathology, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University (1910 - 1912), she returned to nursing in response to an appeal by Ella Phillips Crandall. "There was so great a need for active public health nurses that I must consider seriously the special 'call' she brought me, " Beard decided. As director of the Boston Instructive District Nursing Association (1912 - 1922), Beard was a persuasive advocate for preventive health services. Her conviction that voluntary and official agencies should plan jointly to eliminate duplication of services and uneconomical use of health resources and her skill in working with community groups were key factors in bringing about a merger with the Baby Hygiene Association. For two years she served as general director of the combined Community Health Association (1922 - 1924), during which period the association succeeded in convincing the city of Boston to assume a large part of the work with babies. She then decided that the diminishing program called for a different personality as director.
In 1924 Beard accepted a short-term appointment to conduct a study of maternal health care in England for the Rockefeller Foundation. Her later positions were special assistant to the director of the division of studies (1925 - 1927), assistant to the director of the division of medical education (1927 - 1930), and associate director, international health division (1931 - 1938). During the years that she directed its nursing program from the New York office, the foundation spent over $4 million on nursing projects. Beard's responsibilities included numerous projects to advance education and public health nursing in the United States and abroad. This work took her to European, Middle Eastern, and Asian countries for conferences with representatives of governments, health professions, and educational institutions and for some extensive studies of nursing. Always strongly supportive of university-based schools of nursing that would attract educated women and teach preventive health, she used her influence with the foundation, schools of nursing, allied health groups, and nursing leaders to encourage sound experiments in nursing education and service. A crucial resource for these innovative programs was the nurses whose preparation for leadership positions was strengthened through foundation-supported fellowships; Beard arranged travel and study programs for approximately 428 nurses from thirty-eight countries and eighty-three nurse leaders from the United States.
After leaving the foundation Mary embarked at the age of sixty-two on yet another challenging position as director of the newly consolidated nursing service of the American Red Cross (1938 - 1944). An enrolled Red Cross nurse since 1912, she directed a massive wartime program to recruit graduate nurses for military and civilian services and represented the Red Cross in collaborative efforts to expand and utilize wisely the nation's nursing resources, both as a member of the National Nursing Council and as the first chairman of the subcommittee on nursing of the health and medical committee of the Office of Defense Health and Welfare Services. Having learned through her experience in World War I of the hazards of leaving the civilian population without adequate nursing service, she advocated policies that would meet military needs and yet keep public health nurses and nursing instructors at their posts. The strains and complexities of her task increased as the Red Cross Nursing Service tried to reconcile its recruitment and service functions with those of a growing number of federal agencies and professional organizations. Nevertheless, by 1944, when she resigned because of illness, 50, 000 nurses had been recruited for military service and expanded home nursing programs and a new volunteer nurse's aide program were helping to meet civilian needs.
Beard was one of the best-known nurses in the world. A founder of the National Organization for Public Health Nursing, she was its president during World War I, chairman of the subcommittee on public health nursing of the General Medical Board of the Council of National Defense, and a member of the National Committee on Red Cross Nursing Service. Other memberships included the Rockefeller Foundation Committee for the Study of Nursing and Nursing Education, which produced the Winslow-Goldmark Report, Nursing and Nursing Education in the United States, the nursing committee of the Henry Street Nursing Service, and the advisory committee on nursing, New York City Department of Health. In addition to honorary membership in the Grand Council of the International Council of Nurses, the "Old International Association, " and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Nursing, she received honorary doctoral degrees from the University of New Hampshire (1934) and Smith College (1945).
After an illness of several weeks, Mary Beard died in New York Hospital on December 4, 1946, at the age of seventy.
Membership
Mary Beard served as director of the Boston Instructive District Nursing Association (1912 - 1922); general director of the combined Community Health Association (1922 - 1924); a member of the National Nursing Council; a founder of the National Organization for Public Health Nursing; a member of the National Committee on Red Cross Nursing Service; the Rockefeller Foundation Committee for the Study of Nursing and Nursing Education, etc.
She also was an honorary member in the Grand Council of the International Council of Nurses, the "Old International Association, " and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Nursing.
Personality
Although her professional life was intense and demanding, Mary Beard found time to enjoy friendships, the countryside of her New Hampshire home, and to write, paint, and read. Tall and erect, she made an imposing appearance with her lively expression, light hair, and blue eyes; an aura of warmth and concern in her direct, attentive look made people feel at ease.
