[Haydée Guanais Dourado: charisma and personality to the service of an ideal].

This is a descriptive-social study which looks at the performance of Haydée Guanais Dourado (HGD) in the Brazilian nursing scene, in the mid-20's. The objectives are to describe her personal and professional profile; analyze her participation in ABEn (Brazilian Association of Nursing) and discuss the relationship between her attributes and her contribution to the development of nursing in Brazil. The sources used consisted of Revista Brasileira de Enfermagem-REBEn (Brazilian Journal of Nursing), written documents and oral reports obtained from the Documentation Center of Anna Nery Nursing School in the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The analysis and the interpretation of the data were made by means of the triangulation of the primary and secondary sources, and the historical contextualization. The study evidenced the singularity of HGD and the importance of her contribution to the institutionalization of the nursing profession in the Brazilian society.