In a ceremony held at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, General
Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Florence Blanchfield (above) to
be a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, making her the first
woman in U.S. history to hold permanent military rank.

A member of the Army Nurse Corps since 1917, Blanchfield
secured her commission following the passage of the Army-
Navy Nurse Act of 1947 by Congress.

Blanchfield had served as superintendent of the Army Nurse
Corps during World War II and was instrumental in securing
passage of the Army-Navy Nurse Act, which was advocated by Representative Frances Payne Bolton.

In 1951, Blanchfield received the Florence Nightingale Award
from the International Red Cross.

In 1978, a U.S. Army hospital in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, was
named in her honor.

Florence Nightingale ( 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910)

Nightingale was an English social reformer, statistician and the
founder of modern nursing.

She came to prominence while serving as a manager and trainer
of nurses during the Crimean War, in which she organized care
for wounded soldiers at Constantinople.