Esther Hasson

Esther Voorhees Hasson was the first Superintendent of the United States Navy Nurse Corps. Prior to and after serving in the United States Navy Nurse Corps, she served as an Army nurse.

Early Life
Esther Voorhees Hasson was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on 20 September 1867. She graduated from the Connecticut Training School for Nurses, in New Haven, in 1897.

Nurse Corps Career
In June 1898, during the Spanish American War, Miss Hasson became a contract nurse with the U.S. Army, subsequently serving on the hospital ship Relief and in the Philippines. She left the Army in 1901. In 1905-07, she served as a nurse in Panama.

When the Navy Nurse Corps was established in 1908, Miss Hasson became its first Superintendent, taking the oath of office on 18 August 1908. Under her leadership, 19 additional nurses were recruited and trained for Naval service during 1908. The Nurse Corps had grown to 85 trained nurses by the time Miss Hasson resigned as Superintendent in January 1911.

In June 1917, Esther Hasson became a U.S. Army Reserve Nurse. She served in Europe during the First World War and into 1919, including duty as Chief Nurse of two Army Base hospitals, and left active service in June 1919. Chief Nurse Esther V. Hasson died in Washington, D.C., on 8 March 1942.

Contributions as Superintendent
As the first superintendent of the Navy Nurse Corps Esther Hasson had the task of recruiting qualified nurses and setting up training for the incoming nurses, as well as administering the Corps once it was established. The first nineteen nurses, in addition to Superintendent Hasson, carefully chosen from 33 invited candidates, came to be known as the "Sacred Twenty". Superintendent Hasson worked with Surgeon General Presley Marion Rixey to establish an orderly, disciplined corps with a respectable reputation and excellent benefits, if somewhat limited pay.