The Black Scholars Index » Nursing

Mary Eliza Mahoney: First Black Professional Nurse in America

Leshell Hatley — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:39:35 +0000

Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first black professional nurse in America, and an active organizer among African American nurses. She was born in Boston, on May 7, 1845, the oldest of three children. At the age of 18, she decided to pursue a career in nursing, working at the progressive New England Hospital for Women and Children.

Education

In 1878, at age 33, she was accepted in that hospital’s nursing school, the first professional nursing program in the country. Of the 42 students who started that year, Mahoney was one of just four who graduated the next year. The training required 12 months in the hospital’s medical, surgical, and maternity wards, lectures and instruction by doctors on the ward, as well as four months of work as a private-duty nurse.

Career

After graduation, Mahoney registered for work as a private-duty nurse. Families that employed Mahoney praised her calm and quiet efficiency. Her professionalism helped raise the status of all nurses. At a time when nurses were often assigned domestic chores as well as nursing duties, she refused to take her meals with household staff. As he reputation spread, Mahoney received requests from patients as far away as New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and North Carolina.

Mahoney was one of the first black members of the organization that later became the American Nurses Association (A.N.A.). When that later organization proved slow to admit black nurses, Mahoney strongly supported the establishment of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (N.A.C.G.N.), and delivered the welcome address at that organization’s first annual convention, in 1909. In that speech, Mahoney recognized the inequalities in nursing education and called for a demonstration at the New England Hospital to have more African American students admitted. The conference members responded by electing her to be association chaplain and giving her a lifetime membership.

For over a decade after that, Mahoney helped recruit nurses to joint the organization.

In 1911 she took the helm at the Howard Orphan Asylum in New York, and served there for over a year.

The New England Hospital for Women and Children is now the Dimock Center and now sponsors a Family Center in the Mary Eliza Mahoney House.

Women’s Right To Vote!

Mahoney was deeply concerned with women’s equality and a strong supporter of the movement to gain women the right to vote. When that movement succeeded with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, she was among the first women in Boston to register to vote — at the age of 76.

Mahoney contracted breast cancer in 1923 and died in 1926. Her grave in Everett, Massachusetts, is the site of national pilgrimages. In 1936, the N.A.C.G.N. established an award in her honor (later continued by the A.N.A.) to raise the status of black nurses. She was inducted into the A.N.A.’s Hall of Fame in 1976.

Equality

The effort for equality that Mahoney launched continued. From about 2,400 in 1910, the number of African American women in nursing had more than doubled by 1930, four years after Mahoney’s death.

The Founding of Mary Mahoney Professional Nurses Organization

Mary Mahoney Nurses Club, founders, pictured standing left to right: Mary Martin, Ira Gordon, Mary Davis Hooks, Ernestine Williams, Gertrude Dawson, Maxine Pitter Haynes, Rachel S. Pitts, and Katie Ashford. Seated left to right: Anne Foy Baker, Sadie Berrysmith Wallace, Juanita Davis and Celestine Thomas. Not shown: Mary Lanier. (Photographed by Chester Berrysmith)

In 1949 Anne Foy Baker invited 12 registered nurses to her home. She wanted these nurses to meet one another and to decide if they wanted to establish a professional organization. Under her leadership they established Mary Mahoney Registered Nurse Club, now Mary Mahoney Professional Nurses Organization (MMPNO). The principal purposes of this organization were to (1) provide information and support to one another, and (2) provide scholarship support to students who desired to pursue studies leading to careers in nursing.

The primary mission of the Mary Mahoney Professional Nurses Organization is to provide financial aid and scholarships to students of African heritage who pursue studies leading to careers in professional nursing.

Our goals are to:

Promote recruitment, retention and graduation of African heritage students in nursing programs.
Foster personal and professional career development of MMPNO members.
Enhance physical and psychosocial well-being of under-served people.
Encourage non-partisan political activity that is designed to positively impact the above goals.

Membership is open to any registered nurse of African heritage who is committed to the mission and goals of this organization. Monthly meetings are held on the first Saturday of each month, September through June.

Ruth Simmons: 1st Black President of an Ivy League School

Leshell Hatley — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:02:31 +0000

Ruth J. Simmons was sworn in as the 18th president of Brown University on July 3, 2001. She also holds an appointment as professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Department of Africana Studies. She was president of Smith College from 1995 until the time of her appointment at Brown.

Education
A native of Texas and a 1967 graduate of Dillard University in New Orleans, Simmons received her Ph.D. in Romance languages and literatures from Harvard University in 1973. She is fluent in French and has written on the works of David Diop and Aime Cesaire.

Career
In 1983, after serving as associate dean of the graduate school at the University of Southern California, Simmons joined the Princeton University administration. She remained at Princeton for seven years, leaving in 1990 for two years to serve as provost at Spelman College. Returning to Princeton in 1992 as vice provost, she remained at the university until June 30, 1995. As vice provost she was deputy to the provost and executive secretary of the Priorities Committee, the university’s budget committee. In 1993, invited by the president to review the state of race relations on the Princeton campus, Simmons wrote a report that resulted in a number of initiatives that received widespread attention. In 1995 she became president of Smith College, the largest women’s college in the United States, where she launched a number of strategic initiatives to strengthen the college’s academic programs and inaugurated the first engineering program at a U.S. women’s college.

Dr. Ruth Simmons

Simmons is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, and the Council on Foreign Relations. She is a current officer and past President of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, an Honorary Fellow at Selwyn College at Cambridge University, and she serves on a number of boards, including the Howard University Board of Trustees, Texas Instruments, and the Goldman Sachs Group. She was recently appointed by President Obama as a member of the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships. Active in a wide range of educational, charitable, and civic endeavors, she holds honorary degrees from numerous colleges and universities, including Amherst College, Bard College, Howard University, Dillard University, Princeton University, Lake Forest College, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Dartmouth College, Boston University, Northeastern University, New York University, University of Pennsylvania, Mount Holyoke College, Washington University in St. Louis, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, The George Washington University, Columbia University, Harvard University, Ewha Womens College, University of Southern California, Tougaloo College, Jewish Theological Seminary, University of Toronto, Providence College, University of Vermont, Morehouse College, Spelman College, Union College, and The American College of Greece.

Awards
Simmons is the recipient of a number of prizes and fellowships, including the German DAAD and a Fulbright Fellowship to France. In 1997 she was awarded the Centennial Medal from Harvard University, in 1999 the Teachers College Medal for Distinguished Service from Columbia University, and in 2001 the President’s Award from the United Negro College Fund. She has been honored with the 2002 Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal and the 2002 “Drum Major for Justice” education award from Southern Christian Leadership Conference/WOMEN. In 2004 she received the ROBIE Humanitarian Award, given by the Jackie Robinson Foundation; the Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal; and the chairman’s award of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. She was selected as a Newsweek “person to watch” and as a Ms. Woman of the Year in 2002. In 2001 Time magazine named her America’s best college president. In 2007, she was named one of U. S. News & World Report’s top U.S. leaders and — for the second time — a Glamour magazine Woman of the Year.

Recent Accomplishments
In recent years Simmons, an articulate spokesperson and writer, has written and delivered papers or presentations on a wide array of educational and public policy issues, including institutional governance, foreign language study, diversity, liberal arts, science education, leadership, and women in higher education. Among numerous educational institutions and national forums, she has been a featured speaker at the White House, the World Economic Forum, the National Press Club, the Association of American Universities, and the American Council on Education. In September 2001 ABC News tapped her to serve as a respondent during its live telecast following President Bush’s address to Congress.

During her tenure at Brown University, Simmons has created an ambitious set of initiatives designed to expand and strengthen the faculty; increase financial support and resources for undergraduate, graduate, and medical students; improve facilities; renew a broad commitment to shared governance; and ensure that diversity informs every dimension of the university. These initiatives have led to a major investment of new resources in Brown’s educational mission.

Dr. Ruth Simmons has been featured in Ebony Magazine’s POWER150 (December2009/January2010).

As an academic leader, Simmons believes in the power of education to transform lives. She champions the university as a haven of reasoned debate with the responsibility to challenge students intellectually and prepare them to become informed, conscientious citizens. She has spent her career advocating for a leadership role for higher education in the arena of national and global affairs.

===All information obtained from Dr. Simmons’ bio on Brown University’s website.

UPDATE February 2, 2010: Dr. Simmons is also a Honorary Member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. – the sorority’s highest honor.