Archives

Historical Health Care Heroes: Tri Sigma

Women as Healthcare Workers and Advocates

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on healthcare workers around the world. Doctors, nurses, and health advocates have been lauded as heroes as they put their lives on the line to help others every day. Tri Sigmas, healthcare workers or not, have a history of helping others, although as a pedagogical sorority, many early Tri Sigma women were educators. But many early alumnae did venture beyond the schoolhouse and pursued careers in healthcare, taking the spirit of helping others in a different direction. Two alumnae, in particular, Harriet Parker Hankins, Alpha, and Clara Barton Higgon, Lambda, made a notable impact on both the sorority and society through their healthcare work.

Harriet Hankins was a Red Cross nurse who served both at home and abroad during war and peacetime. She joined Tri Sigma in 1900, graduating in 1903. After leaving Longwood, Harriet trained as a nurse at Garfield Memorial Hospital in Washington D.C. and joined the Red Cross. The Red Cross Nursing Service was a newly chartered federal program dedicated to supporting the military during wartime. Harriet served in the Red Cross in Germany and was posted in New Mexico and Arizona during the Mexican Border War. She was later sent to France during World War One. After World War One, Harriet served at Walter Reed Hospital as a community nurse in Hot Springs, VA, and the chief nurse at the Station Hospital Fort Monroe, a decommissioned military station in Virginia. Harriet served again in the Army Medical Corps, stationed in the Philippines during World War Two. Harriet retired at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Tri Sigma women supported healthcare beyond working as medical care providers. Many women, such as Clara Barton Higgon, Lambda, served as health care advocates. As a tuberculosis survivor, Clara made it her life’s work to educate college students on appropriate health care and advocate for preventative

Alpha Chapter, 1900. Front: Louise Davis, Nannie Wright, Lucy Stubbs. Row 2: Harriet Hankins, Sadie Armstrong, Natalie Lancaster, Mamie Richardson, Lucy Eglin. Back: Jennie Jackson, Rhea Scott. Harriet participated in other activities in school, such as tennis and golf, cotillion, and drama.

measures against tuberculosis. As Lambda’s delegate to the Tri Sigma Convention in 1917 in Chicago, Clara advocated for the sorority to support an anti-tuberculosis program. Her advocacy was successful, eventually leading to an official initiative, the Clara Barton Higgon Project, adopted at the 19th Convention in 1936 in Washington, D.C. The project was an anti-tuberculosis educational and screening initiative for college students. Tri Sigma collegiate chapters sponsored the sale of tuberculosis Christmas seals1 and mobile tuberculosis X-ray screening units through the program. Clara remained a health care and human rights advocate until she died in 1960.

These two examples of Tri Sigma women in healthcare demonstrate our varied history of Sigma’s commitment to service. The Archives is always looking to capture our history in different ways and highlight stories from women such as Harriet and Clara. If you have a Tri Sigma healthcare worker or advocacy story, photos, or memorabilia to share, contact Liz Johns, National Archivist, at archives@trisigma.org.

1Christmas seals are labels placed on mail during the Christmas season. Seals most often raised awareness and funds for charitable causes, and are typically popular during various holiday seasons such as Christmas and Easter.