The namesake of the nursing school at Case Western Reserve University, Frances Payne Bolton was a vocal healthcare reformer and blazed a trail for women in higher education and on Capitol Hill.
As the first congresswoman to be elected from Ohio and the seventh woman to be a member of the House of Representatives, Bolton advocated for better working conditions for nurses, and earned funding from Cleveland industrialist Samuel Mather to expand Lakeside Hospital’s nurses’ residence. She also championed the Bolton Act, which, in 1943, established the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps, integrated previously white-only nursing institutions and provided federal funding for nursing education.
