Wright, Alice Lillian (1894-2000)

  • See Alice Wright Fonds 2                       
  • See Oral History files in Fonds 18, Series 3, Subseries 8
  • See Memorial Nursing Portrait Collection, Fonds 18, Series 3, Subseries 7, File 2
  • See Pages of History, Fonds 18, Series 3, Subseries 9, File 2

After graduation from the Vancouver General Hospital School of Nursing in 1918, Wright first worked in pediatrics at Vancouver General Hospital, then in hospitals in California and New York. She received her Bachelor of Science from Teacher’s College, Columbia University, New York, in 1941 and also took a post-graduate course in pediatrics at New York Nursery and Children’s Hospital,

As Registrar and Executive Secretary of the RNABC from 1943 to her retirement in 1960, she initiated efforts to establish collective bargaining for nurses in BC and in Canada.  She was named an Honorary Life Member of the RNABC in 1952, and an Honorary Life Member of the Canadian Nurses Association in 1962 for her pioneering labor relations work, and for her many professional contributions nationally and internationally through the International Council of Nurses. Her collection of antique infant feeding devices was donated to UBC Woodward Library Special Collections in 1965.

Contents of Biographical File

  1. Nomination to the RNABC Memorial Book.
  2. Nomination to the CNA Memorial Book.
  3. Curriculum Vitae
  4. Photocopy of Diploma, VGH School of Nursing, November 1, 1918.
  5. RNABC Makes a New Appointment, The Canadian Nurse (1943), 39 (10), 669.
  6. Photocopy of Columbia University Bachelor of Science, June 3, 1941.
  7. Honorary Membership CNA, June 29, 1962.
  8. Cooke, Mary, “Profile” of Alice Wright, Nursing B.C., November-December 1994, 9, 11.
  9. Alice Wright, “What Do Canadian Nurses’ Associations Do”, The Canadian Nurse March 1955, pp. 190-193.
  10. [Boarding a flight to Copenhagen and Geneva], The Canadian Nurse 52, June 1956, No. 6.
  11. “ . . . Is a Friendly House Which Will Cap Lives of Devoted Nursing Service”, The Province, October 29, 1963.
  12. “Alice Wright, Evelyn Hood Remembered”, Nursing BC, June 2000, p. 23.
  13. Two scanned photographs
  14. Esther Paulson, “In Memory of Alice Lilian Wright”.
  15. Obituary
  16. Notes on Alice Wright, May 19, 1995.
  17. Faith Featherstone, “Pioneer RN hits 100.”
  18. Cooke, Mary, “Profile” of Alice Wright, Nursing B.C., November-December 1994, pp.9,11
  19. .  Notes on Alice Wright, 1995
  20. Glennis Zilm and Sheila Zerr, “Profile of a Leader:  Labour Relations Pioneer:  Alice Lillian Wright 1894-2000”, Canadian Journal of Nursing Leadership 14, No. 2 (May-June 2001, pp. 27-28,  With accompanying correspondence