Click on headline to read the (somewhat long) article…
The woman who defied the odds as the first Black nurse in the U.S.
At a time when Black women were largely excluded from formal training, Mary Eliza Mahoney set a new standard for who could serve in American hospitals.
Sixteen-hour days, seven days a week, scrubbing floors, emptying bedpans, and eventually assisting nurses and doctors. For 15 years, Mary Eliza Mahoney toiled at Boston’s New England Hospital for Women and Children as a maid, cook, and washerwoman. These were the only jobs open to Black women during an era historians now darkly recall as “the nadir of American race relations.”
Despite how limited her options were, Mahoney dreamed of being at the forefront of patient care. In 1878, a 33-year-old Mahoney applied to nursing school at the hospital where she worked. Although she was two years older than the program permitted, the administrators waived the age requirement, as they’d seen years of her work.
Mahoney became the first Black professionally trained nurse in the United States and also went on to raise nursing’s standards and open its doors to other Black women, insisting that professional excellence and racial justice were inseparable.
Thanks, Rick!