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Eloise Rallings Lewis Collection

 Collection
Identifier: WV0047

Content Description

The collection includes an oral history transcript, 1 March 1999; various photographs of Lewis' Army Nurse Corps service, 1945-1952; various military papers, 1945-1950; a Nurses' Guide handbook, 1945. There is an additional manuscript collection from Eloise Patricia Rallings Lewis at https://gateway.uncg.edu/islandora/object/mss:MSS0128.

Dates

  • circa 1945-1999

Creator

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright is retained by the creators of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information. Please see our Sensitive Materials Statement.

Biographical / Historical

Eloise Patricia Rallings Lewis (1920-1999) of Pageland, South Carolina, served on the faculty of Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and as an assistant director of the Cadet Nurse Corps with the Army Nurse Corps during World War II. Lewis served as dean of the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) from 1966 to 1985.

Eloise Patricia Rallings Lewis was born on 22 April 1920 in Pageland, South Carolina, the fourth daughter of Dr. and Mrs. J. Monroe Rallings, a country medical practitioner and a college speech teacher. She graduated from Pageland High School in 1936. Lewis attended Winthrop College in Rock Hill, South Carolina, for two years, and then transferred in 1938 to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. She graduated in 1941 from their hospital school program. Lewis served on the faculty of the Women's Medical College School of Nursing in Philadelphia from 1941 to 1943. From 1943 to 1945 she was an instructor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

Dr. Lewis joined the Army Nurse Corps in the spring of 1945. After attending basic training at Fort Lee in Virginia, she became the assistant director of the Cadet Nurse Corps at the Valley Forge General Hospital in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, which was a primary burn and blind center. She was discharged in December 1945 as a first lieutenant. Lewis received her master's degree in education in 1951 from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was also on the faculty from 1946 to 1952. She joined the faculty of the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1953 and taught there until 1966. She also earned a doctorate in education at Duke University in 1963. Lewis became the first dean of the School of Nursing at UNCG in 1966. She retired from UNCG in 1985.

Lewis was active with the UNCG community and in various professional organizations throughout her career and after her retirement. She was the president of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing from 1978 to 1980 and the first editor of the Journal of Professional Nursing in the mid-1980s. She was also very active with hospice care in Greensboro. Lewis received numerous awards for her contributions to the nursing field and four honorary degrees. Eloise Lewis died in 1999.

Extent

0.42 Linear Feet (5 folders, Archival Box 1)

Language of Materials

English

Metadata Rights Declarations

  • License: This record is made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Creative Commons license.

Condition Description

The condition is fair.

Offensive Language Statement

The UNC Greensboro University Libraries collects, preserves, and makes accessible unique and historical materials for learning and research. The nature of historical materials is such that some material may represent positions, norms, and values that are offensive and objectionable. These materials represent the opinions and actions of their creators. By providing access to these records in our reading room and through our digital collections, we recognize that archives and rare books can play a vital role in holding those creators accountable and in helping us learn from the past.

Our finding aids and other collection descriptions may occasionally re-use language provided by creators or former holders of the materials, but we strive to place outdated or offensive terminology in context. That said, we recognize that we may not always make the right decision and welcome feedback from all sources so we can learn and adjust our practices. Please contact us at scua@uncg.edu if you encounter problematic language in our finding aids or other collection description. We will review the language and, as appropriate, update it in a way that balances preservation of the original context with our ongoing commitment to describing materials with respectful and inclusive language.

Processing Information

Processed by Matthew McCarthy.

Title
Eloise Rallings Lewis Collection
Status
Completed
Author
Matthew McCarthy
Date
2022 August
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
eng

Repository Details

Part of the Martha Blakeney Hodges Special Collections and University Archives Repository

Contact:
P.O. Box 26170
320 College Ave.
Greensboro NC 27402-6170 US
336-334-5246