Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first black professional nurse in the U.S. She co-founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN), which worked to eliminate racial discrimination within the registered nursing profession. Mahoney was born in 1845 in Boston, Massachusetts. Her parents were freed slaves, who had moved north from Carolina before the Civil …
Bridget “Biddy” Mason was an African-American nurse, real estate entrepreneur and philanthropist. She was able to support her extended family for generations due to her financial success. Mason was born into slavery in 1818 in Mississippi. She was named Bridget and given no last name. Mason was owned by slaveholders in Georgia and South Carolina …
Mary Seacole was a Jamaican-born nurse who helped soldiers during the Crimean War by setting up a “British Hotel” behind the lines for sick and convalescent officers. She was posthumously awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit in 1991. Seacole was born Mary Grant in 1805 in Kingston, Jamaica. She was of Scottish and Creole descent …
Clara Barton was a pioneer in the field of nursing and one of the founders of the American Red Cross. Barton realised that she was destined to become a nurse when her brother David became seriously ill after a barn-raising accident, 11 year old Barton nursed him for two years. After David recovered Barton was …