Kinney worked as a nurse in Massachusetts, Minnesota, and California, before she became an army nurse in 1898. She was first assigned to the hospital at the
Presidio of San Francisco. She also worked with tubercular patients at
Fort Bayard, New Mexico. In 1901, she became superintendent of the United States Army Nursing Corps. In that year, she was called "perhaps the most conspicuous woman in the nursing profession today". Her work included lecture and inspection tours of army hospitals in the United States and abroad. She resigned the superintendency in 1909. Kinney left active nursing for health reasons in 1914, but taught
American Red Cross nurses during
World War I. ==Personal life==