Mary Eliza Mahoney

African American nurse

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. Mahoney received several honors and awards for her work. She 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 were freed, formerly enslaved peoples 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 a young age, Mahoney was a devout Baptist and churchgoer and attended the People's Baptist Church in Roxbury. At the age of ten, 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 such as morality and humanity alongside general subjects like English, History, and Mathematics. This style of instruction is believed 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 was unsuccessful in receiving her 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. 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 A. M. to 9:30 P. M. shift, which required Mahoney to attend lectures and lessons 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 of 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 many of them were 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 3 other colleagues — the first Black woman to do so in the United States.

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, and had been done in New Jersey, with the occasional travel to other states. During the early years of her employment, African American nurses were often treated as if they were household servants rather than professionals. Mahoney emphasized her preference to eating dinner alone in the kitchen, distancing herself from eating with the existing household help, to further dismiss 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. Nevertheless, families who employed Mahoney praised her efficiency in her nursing profession. Mahoney's professionalism helped raise the status and standards of all nurses, especially minorities. 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. Of the many goals that Mahoney had hoped of achieving, one was to change the way patients and families thought of minority nurses. Mahoney wanted to abolish any discrimination in the nursing field. Being an African American woman in a predominantly white society, she often experienced discrimination. In Massachusetts particularly, it was difficult for African American nurses to find work following graduation, due to the limitations of either working in African American homes or working in white homes that already had African American employees in household work. She believed that all people should have the opportunity to pursue their dreams without racial discrimination. It is said that Frederick Douglass, a prominent African American abolitionist and formerly enslaved person of the time, was distantly related to Mahoney, which became one of the influences in her active participation against the repercussions of slavery and racial discrimination against minorities in the United States. In 1896, Mahoney became one of the original members of the then predominantly white Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada (NAAUSC), which later became the American Nurses Association (ANA). In the early 1900s, the NAAUSC did not welcome African American nurses into their association. In response, Mahoney co founded a new, more welcoming nurse's association, with help of Martha Minerva Franklin and Adah B. Thoms. Her grave is located in Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett, Massachusetts. In 1968 Helen Sullivan Miller, a recipient of the Mary E. Mahoney Medal, spearheaded a drive to establish a proper monument.