ROBB, ISABEL ADAMS HAMPTON (Aug. 1860-15 April 1910), nurse and textbook author, helped standardize education for NURSING in the United States and abroad. She played a key role in founding the forerunner of the Francis Payne Bolton School for Nursing in Cleveland. Robb was born in Welland, Ontario, Canada. She graduated from the New York Training School for Nurses at Bellevue Hospital in New York City in 1883. After 18 months at St. Paul's House in Rome Italy, and a stint as superintendent of nurses at the Illinois Training School in Chicago (1886-89), Robb organized and was the principal of the Johns Hopkins School for Nurses in Baltimore (1889). She chaired the subsection for nursing for the 1893 World's Fair and helped form the Society of Superintendents of Training Schools (later the National League for Nursing Education). On 12 June 1894 she married HUNTER ROBB†, M.D., in London, England; Robb carried flowers sent by another nursing pioneer, Florence Nightingale. In November the couple came to Cleveland.

In 1895 Robb gave the first series of formal lectures on nursing at Lakeside Hospital, as a new member of the hospital's Board of Lady Managers (see UNIVERSITY HOSPITALS CASE MEDICAL CENTER). Chair of Lakeside's Training School Committee (1896-1910), she spoke at the dedication of the new Lakeside Hospital (1898). She helped organize and was first president of the national Nurses' Associated Alumnae Association (1897, later the American Nurses Association), belonged to the local Graduate Nurses Association (see GREATER CLEVELAND NURSES ASSN.), and helped found the American Journal of Nursing. Robb was an Honorary Member of the Matrons' Council of London, England, and in 1909, chaired the education committee of the International Council of Nurses. The mother of 3 children, Hampton, Phillip H., and Hunter, Robb died in a streetcar accident in Cleveland. Friends created the Isabel Robb Memorial Fund, which supported the Graduate Nurses' Association and, later, nursing school scholarships. Robb was buried in Welland, Ontario.

Stanley A. Ferguson Archives, University Hospitals of Cleveland.

Lakeside School of Nursing Records, CWRU Archives.

Robb, Isabel H. Nursing Ethics (1907).

--------------. Educational Standards for Nurses (1907).

--------------. Nursing: Its Principle and Practice (1906)

Faddis, Margene O. The History of the Francis Payne Bolton School of Nursing (1948).

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