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Mary Eliza Mahoney
Mary Eliza Mahoney (May 7, 1845 – January 4, 1926) was the first African American to study and work as a professionally trained nurse in the United States. In 1879, Mahoney was the first African American to graduate from an American school of nursing.
In 1908, Martha Minerva Franklin and Adah B. Thoms, two of Mahoney's colleagues, met in New York City to found the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN). Mahoney, Franklin, and Thoms worked to improve access to educational and nursing practices and to raise standards of living for African American registered nurses. The NACGN played a foundational role in eliminating racial discrimination in the registered nursing profession. An increase in the acceptance of Black women into medical positions, as well as the integration of the NACGN with the American Nurses Association, prompted the dissolution of the organization in 1951.
Mahoney was inducted into the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame in 1976 and the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.
Mary Eliza Mahoney was born in 1845 in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Mahoney's parents, Charles and May Jane (Stewart) Mahoney, were freed, formerly enslaved people from North Carolina who moved north before the American Civil War in pursuit of a life with less racial discrimination. Mahoney was the eldest child, with one of her siblings dying in early childhood. From an early age, Mahoney was a devout Baptist and churchgoer and attended the People's Baptist Church in Roxbury. At the age of 10, Mahoney was admitted into the Phillips School, one of the first integrated schools in Boston, where she studied from first to fourth grade. The Phillips School curriculum included teachings on values including morality and humanity alongside general subjects including English, history and mathematics. This style of instruction is believed[by whom?] to have influenced Mahoney's early interest in nursing.
Mahoney knew from a young age that she wanted to be a nurse, possibly due to seeing immediate emergence of nurses during the American Civil War. Black women in the nineteenth century faced systemic barriers to formal training and career opportunities as licensed nurses. Nursing schools in the American South rejected applications from African American women, whereas further North, though the opportunity was still severely limited, there was greater chance at acceptance into training and graduate programs. Mahoney was admitted into a sixteen-month program at the New England Hospital for Women and Children (now the Dimock Community Health Center) in 1878 at the age of thirty-three, alongside thirty-nine other students. Her sister, Ellen Mahoney, attended the same nursing program for a time but did nor receive a degree. The criteria the hospital used in the student selection process emphasized that the forty candidates would be "well and strong, between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one, and have a good reputation as to character and disposition". Out of a class of forty, Mahoney and two white women were the only students to complete the program and receive their degree. It is presumed that the administration accepted Mahoney, despite not meeting the age criteria, because of her connections to the hospital through prior work as a cook, maid, and washerwoman there when she was eighteen. Mahoney worked nearly sixteen hours daily for the fifteen years that she worked as a hospital laborer.
Mahoney's training required that she spend at least one year in the hospital's various wards to gain universal nursing knowledge. The intensive program consisted of long days with a 5:30 AM to 9:30 PM shift, which required Mahoney to attend lectures and lessons and to educate herself through instruction of doctors in the ward. These lectures consisted of nursing in families, physiological subjects, food for the sick, surgical nursing, child-bed nursing, disinfectants, and general nursing. Outside the lectures, students were taught bedside procedures, such as taking vital signs and bandaging. In addition, Mahoney worked for several months as a private-duty nurse. The nursing program allowed students to earn a weekly wage, ranging from 1 to 4 dollars, after their first two weeks of work. For many of the nurses these wages were insufficient, as they struggling financially and giving back 25% of their wages for financial assistance to the hospital. Three quarters of the program consisted of the nurses working within a surgical, maternity or medical ward with six patients they were responsible caring for. The last two months of the extensive 16-month long program required the nurses to use their newfound knowledge and skills in environments they were not accustomed to; such as hospitals or private family homes. After completing these requirements, Mahoney graduated in 1879 as a registered nurse alongside two colleagues — the first Black person to do so in the United States. Mahoney was the first Black person to register with the Nurses Directory at the Massachusetts Medical Library.
Mahoney’s guiding motto was "Work more and better the coming year than the previous year."
After receiving her nursing diploma, Mahoney worked for many years as a private care nurse, earning a distinguished reputation. She worked for predominantly white, wealthy families. The majority of her work was with new mothers and newborns, in New Jersey, with occasional travel to other states. During the early years of her employment, African American nurses were often treated as household servants rather than professionals. Mahoney emphasized her preference to eating dinner alone in the kitchen, distancing herself from eating with household help, to further distinguish the relation between the professions. Mahoney also lived alone in an apartment in Roxbury where she spent time reading and relaxing, while also attending church activities with her sister. Families who employed Mahoney praised her efficiency in her nursing profession. In an article in the American Journal of Nursing in 1954, one patient was quoted as saying, "I owe my life to that dear soul." Mahoney's professionalism helped raise the status and standards of all nurses, especially minorities.[citation needed] Mahoney was also known for her skills and preparedness. As Mahoney's reputation quickly spread, she received private-duty nursing requests from patients in states in the north and south east coast.
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Mary Eliza Mahoney
Mary Eliza Mahoney (May 7, 1845 – January 4, 1926) was the first African American to study and work as a professionally trained nurse in the United States. In 1879, Mahoney was the first African American to graduate from an American school of nursing.
In 1908, Martha Minerva Franklin and Adah B. Thoms, two of Mahoney's colleagues, met in New York City to found the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN). Mahoney, Franklin, and Thoms worked to improve access to educational and nursing practices and to raise standards of living for African American registered nurses. The NACGN played a foundational role in eliminating racial discrimination in the registered nursing profession. An increase in the acceptance of Black women into medical positions, as well as the integration of the NACGN with the American Nurses Association, prompted the dissolution of the organization in 1951.
Mahoney was inducted into the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame in 1976 and the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993.
Mary Eliza Mahoney was born in 1845 in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Mahoney's parents, Charles and May Jane (Stewart) Mahoney, were freed, formerly enslaved people from North Carolina who moved north before the American Civil War in pursuit of a life with less racial discrimination. Mahoney was the eldest child, with one of her siblings dying in early childhood. From an early age, Mahoney was a devout Baptist and churchgoer and attended the People's Baptist Church in Roxbury. At the age of 10, Mahoney was admitted into the Phillips School, one of the first integrated schools in Boston, where she studied from first to fourth grade. The Phillips School curriculum included teachings on values including morality and humanity alongside general subjects including English, history and mathematics. This style of instruction is believed[by whom?] to have influenced Mahoney's early interest in nursing.
Mahoney knew from a young age that she wanted to be a nurse, possibly due to seeing immediate emergence of nurses during the American Civil War. Black women in the nineteenth century faced systemic barriers to formal training and career opportunities as licensed nurses. Nursing schools in the American South rejected applications from African American women, whereas further North, though the opportunity was still severely limited, there was greater chance at acceptance into training and graduate programs. Mahoney was admitted into a sixteen-month program at the New England Hospital for Women and Children (now the Dimock Community Health Center) in 1878 at the age of thirty-three, alongside thirty-nine other students. Her sister, Ellen Mahoney, attended the same nursing program for a time but did nor receive a degree. The criteria the hospital used in the student selection process emphasized that the forty candidates would be "well and strong, between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one, and have a good reputation as to character and disposition". Out of a class of forty, Mahoney and two white women were the only students to complete the program and receive their degree. It is presumed that the administration accepted Mahoney, despite not meeting the age criteria, because of her connections to the hospital through prior work as a cook, maid, and washerwoman there when she was eighteen. Mahoney worked nearly sixteen hours daily for the fifteen years that she worked as a hospital laborer.
Mahoney's training required that she spend at least one year in the hospital's various wards to gain universal nursing knowledge. The intensive program consisted of long days with a 5:30 AM to 9:30 PM shift, which required Mahoney to attend lectures and lessons and to educate herself through instruction of doctors in the ward. These lectures consisted of nursing in families, physiological subjects, food for the sick, surgical nursing, child-bed nursing, disinfectants, and general nursing. Outside the lectures, students were taught bedside procedures, such as taking vital signs and bandaging. In addition, Mahoney worked for several months as a private-duty nurse. The nursing program allowed students to earn a weekly wage, ranging from 1 to 4 dollars, after their first two weeks of work. For many of the nurses these wages were insufficient, as they struggling financially and giving back 25% of their wages for financial assistance to the hospital. Three quarters of the program consisted of the nurses working within a surgical, maternity or medical ward with six patients they were responsible caring for. The last two months of the extensive 16-month long program required the nurses to use their newfound knowledge and skills in environments they were not accustomed to; such as hospitals or private family homes. After completing these requirements, Mahoney graduated in 1879 as a registered nurse alongside two colleagues — the first Black person to do so in the United States. Mahoney was the first Black person to register with the Nurses Directory at the Massachusetts Medical Library.
Mahoney’s guiding motto was "Work more and better the coming year than the previous year."
After receiving her nursing diploma, Mahoney worked for many years as a private care nurse, earning a distinguished reputation. She worked for predominantly white, wealthy families. The majority of her work was with new mothers and newborns, in New Jersey, with occasional travel to other states. During the early years of her employment, African American nurses were often treated as household servants rather than professionals. Mahoney emphasized her preference to eating dinner alone in the kitchen, distancing herself from eating with household help, to further distinguish the relation between the professions. Mahoney also lived alone in an apartment in Roxbury where she spent time reading and relaxing, while also attending church activities with her sister. Families who employed Mahoney praised her efficiency in her nursing profession. In an article in the American Journal of Nursing in 1954, one patient was quoted as saying, "I owe my life to that dear soul." Mahoney's professionalism helped raise the status and standards of all nurses, especially minorities.[citation needed] Mahoney was also known for her skills and preparedness. As Mahoney's reputation quickly spread, she received private-duty nursing requests from patients in states in the north and south east coast.