General Content
Eva Allerton, the second Superintendent of The Rochester Homeopathic Hospital, was born at Mount Union, Ohio on December 15, 1853. She graduated from the Boston Training School for Nurses (Massachusetts General Hospital School of Nursing.) in 1885. As a graduate nurse she worked for Dr. S. Weir Mitchell of Philadelphia. She later returned to Massachusetts General as Night Superintendent. After a brief stint as superintendent of the training school of the Alleghany General Hospital she became superintendent of the Rochester Homeopathic Hospital (The Genesee Hospital) February 22, 1890.
Miss Allerton brought an “unusual executive ability” to the Rochester Homeopathic Hospital. She succeeded in getting its school of nursing incorporated in 1891. “In a large measure it was through her devotion the hospital” that it became a leader in Rochester’s healthcare community.
Through her tireless work in the professionalization of nursing she was part of the establishment of the American Society of Superintendents of Training–Schools for Nurses, New York State Nurses Association and the Monroe County Nurses Association.
Miss Allerton was active in the movement to pass the nurse practice act, the “Armstrong Bill”, that provided for the registration of nurses in New York State. She was chairman of the NYS Nurses Association Legislative Committee that led the way for passage of the act. This work was done under considerable strain causing exhaustion, and possibly contributed to her untimely death at the age of 53 in 1907.