Anna DeCosta Banks was the first head nurse at the Hospital and Training School for Nurses in Charleston, South Carolina. Banks was one of the first students to earn a diploma from the Hampton Institute’s Training School for Nurses in Virginia and became a registered nurse in 1893. She was known for her distinguished nursing career, having also served as superintendent for 32 years at the same training school for nurses, which was later renamed the McClennan-Banks Memorial Hospital in her honor.
