![]() Of the 42 students who entered the school in 1878, only four completed the course, graduating in 1879. Students worked from 6 AM until 9 PM and, in their free time, were expected to do chores like laundry, ironing and cleaning. ![]() Four months of private-duty nursing in local Roxbury homes followed. Students received 12 months of medical, surgical and maternal health training, attending lectures and afforded valuable hands-on hospital experience. The school’s 16-month program was rigorous. And in 1878, at age 33, Mary Mahoney became one of them. The NEHWC was one of those institutions, limiting its admission of black students to two a year. Every year, a select few were admitted to meet rigidly enforced institutional quotas in what amounted to de facto segregation. NEHWC also operated one of America’s first nursing schools at a time when African American nursing students were routinely excluded from white hospital-based nursing schools. ![]() More importantly, she had the opportunity to work as a nurse’s aide, gaining valuable hands-on experience. Mary Eliza Mahoney was there for 15 years, working in various capacities as a cook, janitor and laundress. Mary Mahoney (bottom row, center) became an activist and advocate for the integration of African Americans into the nursing profession. Exceptional for its place in the history of women in medicine, it had an all-female physician staff. NEHWC was the first hospital in New England, and the second in America, established and operated by women for women. She had always wanted to be a nurse when she started working at the New England Hospital for Women and Children, known today as Dimock Community Health Center. In 1855, by an act of the Massachusetts legislature, it became one of Boston’s first integrated schools. Jamaica’s Mary Seacole nursed soldiers during the Crimean War Harriet Tubman and Susie King Taylor tended the Civil War’s wounded and Namahyoke Sockum Curtis battled typhoid, yellow fever and malaria as a nurse during the Spanish-American War.īorn in 1845 to freed slaves who traveled to Boston from North Carolina, Mary Mahoney was educated at the Phillips School, named for the father of abolitionist Wendell Philips and considered one of the best schools in the city. When Mary Eliza Mahoney graduated in 1879 as America’s first professional nurse, she stood on the shoulders of giants. Today, you are our freedom heroes.In 1879, Mary Mahoney made American history when she graduated from the New England Hospital for Women and Children’s nursing school as the first African American to become a professional, licensed nurse. The memorial is visited by many and signifies the strength and resilience of Mary’s legacy.Īs we wait out this pandemic that has taken over the world, we at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center thank all those health care professionals who continue to work the front line. Miller, raised enough money along with other sororities to erect a memorial at Mahoney's gravesite. In 1968, Mary Mahoney Award Winner Helen S. In 1936, the National Association for Colored Graduate Nurses created the Mary Mahoney Award in honor of her achievements, still given today. ![]() She is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett, Massachusetts. On Janushe died of breast cancer at the age of 80. Unfortunately, 1923 brought on a new battle for Mary that she lost 3 years later. At age 76, she became one of the first women to register to vote after the passage of the 19th amendment in 1920. In 1911, Mary became the Director of the The Howard Colored Orphan Asylum for African American children in Long Island, New York, serving one year. Due to the racial inequalities of the time, the private sector was the only option for an African American nurse. Mary was among the four.Īfter graduation, Mary worked as a private nurse for over 30 years. She was finally accepted in to the hospital’s professional graduate school for nursing. In 1878, she was granted a new opportunity. Mary worked at the hospital for 15 years as a cook, maid, laundress and nurse’s aide. At age 18, Mary found work at the New England Hospital for Women and Children, which was run by a staff of women.
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