Inspiration for activism!
- “Compassionate, and unconventional, soon becoming an ardent pacifist and then a militant suffragist” from AJPH
- Despite objections from other nurses who believed nurses should not be involved politically, Dock organized and engaged in picketing and

Lavinia Dock
protesting on behalf of the vote for women in the United States, organizing protests and campaigns for suffrage; she was arrested at least 3 times for attempting to vote.
- Devoted to a wide range of issues in addition to women’s suffrage, including better housing for immigrants, safe working conditions, state and national legislation to regulate child labor, pensions and health insurance.
- Worked tirelessly for better standards and practices for nursing education; she wrote, financed and published Materia Medica for Nurses, a nursing textbook of pharmacology.
- Served as a visiting nurse with the House on Henry Street in New York City, contributing to standards for public health nursing world-wide.
- Co-authored, with Adelaide Nutting, “A History of Nursing,” believing that nursing would not be fully accepted until its history had been fully documented. This work has been recognized as “culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.”
More information here and here.
Lavinia Dock papers here.





