Crandall, Ella Phillips (1871–1938)

American nurse. Born on September 16, 1871, in Wellsville, New York; died on October 24, 1938, in New York City; graduated from Philadelphia General Hospital School of Nursing, 1897.

Ella Phillips Crandall was dedicated to establishing public nursing as a recognized profession with high standards. She was born in Wellsville, New York, but grew up in Dayton, Ohio. Two years after her graduation from Philadelphia General Hospital School of Nursing (1897), she returned to Dayton, taking positions as assistant superintendent of the Miami Valley Hospital and as director of the hospital's school of nursing, which was then newly founded. Moving to New York City in 1909, Crandall entered the New York School of Philanthropy. She worked for a year in the visiting nurse service of Lillian Wald 's Henry Street Settlement House, as a superintendent.

Crandall served on the graduate nursing faculty of Columbia University's Teachers College from 1910 to 1912, and in 1911 on a commission charged with researching the need for organized public-health work as well as the as yet unclarified role of nurses. As a result of the commission's work, the National Organization for Public Health Nursing emerged in 1912, and Crandall became executive secretary. She worked for the association for eight years, laboring to develop the field of public-health nursing into a recognized profession. Crandall traveled often, giving addresses, and contributed to the organization's Public Health Nurse (subsequently Public Health Nursing).

She worked on the American Red Cross' nursing committee during the First World War and served as executive secretary of the National Emergency Committee on Nursing of the General Medical Board of the Council of National Defense. In 1920, she resigned from her post as head of the Public Health Nursing organization but remained active on behalf of public-health nursing. From 1922 to 1925, Crandall served as associate director of the American Child Health Association and in 1927 was named executive secretary of the Payne Fund, a newly formed philanthropic foundation that sponsored research in the field of education. She died on October 24, 1938, in New York City.