Mary Eliza Mahoney: Determined to Overcome Medical Training Prejudice

by Linda Harris Sittig

In 1985 my father lay immobile in a hospital bed in Florida, a viral infection victim with Guillain Barré.  For a 71-year-old previously healthy and active man, we were all in shock that his body had turned against him.

My brother and I had flown to Florida to talk with the doctors so that we could understand my dad’s prognosis. Because neither of us was in the medical-health field, we found the doctors compassionate but sometimes hard to understand in layman’s terms of what was happening. But we were told my dad’s nurse would come in shortly and answer any further questions.

Enter the nurse.

Up to this point in my life, I had never really thought much about nurses. Throughout my early years and young adulthood, they all looked strikingly the same, female and white.

When Nurse Paul entered the room, I’m sure I had a surprised look on my face. I do remember saying, “Are you the nurse?”

Paul turned out to be more than a nurse; he became our resident angel, taking care of both my father and my brother and me. When my father finally left the I.C.U, Nurse Paul had become a part of my life and forever changed my stereotypical image of nurses.

Now enter Mary Eliza Mahoney.

At the age of 34, Mary Mahoney was the first African-American woman to earn a professional nursing degree and become a full-time licensed nurse. The year was 1879.

Mary Eliza’s parents were freed slaves who left North Carolina before the Civil War. They headed for New England and the chance for their children to receive a proper education. Born in 1845 in Boston, Massachusetts, Mary Eliza was the oldest of her three siblings. Her parents later enrolled her at the nearby Phillips School, one of America’s first integrated educational institutions.

By the time Mary Eliza was a teen, she felt drawn to nursing and decided to take a job at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in nearby Roxbury. She took the only jobs offered, janitor, cook, and washerwoman for someone with no professional training. Her dedication led her to become a nurse’s aide, and that was how she began to educate herself about the nursing profession.

The New England Hospital for Women and Children was highly unusual since the doctors were all female. Mary Eliza flourished in an atmosphere dedicated to the health and well-being of women and children.

In 1862 The New England Hospital for Women and Children opened one of the first nursing schools in the United States. After working at the hospital for 15 years, Mary Eliza applied for admission to the nursing program.

The program was intense, but at age 33, Mary Eliza dug in her heels and persisted in her studies. She spent her 16 hour days attending lectures and classes and participating in first-hand experiences with patients in the hospital wards. Of course, it helped that she had already had over a decade of knowledge working at the hospital.

After the program ended, only four of the original  42 students who had started together finished to graduate. Mary Eliza was one of those four and the only African-American. And this is how she became the first African-American woman to earn a professional nursing license.

Then the question became, where would she work?

In 1879 the United States was still in the grip of post-Civil War sentiments, and racial prejudice ran high in the field of public nursing. So Mary Eliza set out to pursue a career in private nursing.

For the next 30 years, Mary Eliza focused on the needs of her clients. Because of her skills, knowledge, and professionalism, she was sought out by many of Boston’s prestigious families.

Then, in 1896 Mary joined the Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States (today the American Nurses Association). This group, however, was predominantly white and slow to accept Negro nurses. Mary waited till 1909 and then helped to form the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. At the NACGN’s first national conference a year later, Mary Eliza was asked to give the opening speech.

In 1911 she decided to use her nursing talents in a new way. She became the Director for the Howard Orphanage Asylum for Black Children located in Long Island, New York.

When she finally retired from nursing, Mary Eliza turned her energy and interests into the suffrage movement. When the 19^th Amendment passed in 1920, Mary Eliza was one of the first women to register to vote in Boston. She died from breast cancer six years later at the age of 80.

Ten years later, the National Association for Colored Graduate Nurses established the Mary Mahoney Award in honor of the woman who had given her entire life to others. The American Nurses Association still bestows that award today.

 I can only think that Mary Eliza would have been a wonderful nurse for my dad, but then again, so was Paul.

March is the month to celebrate Women’s History, and to all the Strong Women out there, we say Cheers!

If you are not yet a follower of Strong Women, please sign up on the right-hand sidebar and encourage your friends to follow us, too. In the meantime, you can also catch me on Twitter @lhsittig, FaceBook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. My three novels of historical fiction featuring Strong Women are Cut From Strong Cloth, Last Curtain Call, and Counting Crows. They are available in bookstores and online.

Wishing you health and peace in 2021.

~ Linda