The "Sympathetic Layman":  Frances Payne Bolton

Bolton reviewing troops with
General Eisenhower (1944)

Cadet received other benefits as well, including "an education for life" offered by the G.I. Bill.  The pewter gray wool winter outfit, trimmed with red accents, and a logo on the sleeve identified the nurse with the war effort.  Bolton School emeritus professor Barbara Long recalled that when she traveled by train during the war, she made sure to wear her uniform because military people were always granted a seat and did not have to wait for a later train.  Bolton observed the role that nurses played in the conflict in 1944, as the first civilian woman in liberated Paris.

Beyond her contributions in the nursing profession, Bolton was an important member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the first woman to lead an overseas mission.  Her trips in the late 1940s and 1950s throughout Europe and the Soviet Union helped to shape the direction of U.S. foreign policy.  She also headed the committee that produced one of the most influential statements on world communism.  The Strategy and  Tactics of World Communism became required reading for Foreign Service Officers, and cadets at West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force academics.

The African continent and its people also become a matter of intense personal and political interest to Bolton.  In 1955 she embarked upon a 99-day tour.  She visited 24 African countries and observed the status of their health care, living conditions, and their political situation.   She was struck that the "greatest hazard of all Africa is health."   She came to love Africa intensely.  Reporting to President Eisenhower, she wrote:  "It has been a deeply moving experience, one that has made changes within me that as yet there has not been time to evaluate, even to understand."   Upon her return, she became one of the first U.S. Representatives to speak out against apartheid in South Africa.  As former Congressman William J. Stanton said, "No person, man, or woman had greater influence in shaping American policy in Africa.   Her involvement led the way for humanitarian policies...(and helping) millions of poor and starving in sub-Saharan Africa." 

Thus, Bolton's seemingly endless well of compassion, exemplified by her own modest claim of being simply a "sympathetic layman," had an impact not only on the American nursing profession, but also changed the course of American policy and the wellness of an entire continent.

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