3/15/2023 0 Comments Mary eliza mahoneyMahoney was 17 when the German-born physician Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska founded the New England Hospital for Women and Children with the goal of providing women with the opportunities and skills needed in the medical profession, which at the time was typically reserved for men. Mahoney entered the first grade at age 10, attending the Phillips School after it became one of the first desegregated public schools in Boston. ![]() She was the oldest of three children of Charles and May Jane (Stewart) Mahoney, who were believed to have been enslaved in North Carolina before being freed. Mary Eliza Mahoney was born in 1845 in Dorchester, Mass., which was later annexed by Boston. She was a sound builder for the future, a builder of foundations on which others to follow may safely depend.” Mary Ella Chayer, a former professor of nursing at the Teachers College at Columbia University, wrote of Mahoney in 1954: “This nurse was an outstanding student of her time, an expert and tender practitioner, an exemplary citizen, and an untiring worker in both local and national organizations. (A survey published in The Journal of Nursing Regulation found that 6.7 percent of nurses in the nation in 2020 were Black.) Her success opened doors for future generations of Black women in nursing, and she would devote the rest of her career to making the profession more accessible, particularly through her role as one of the first Black members of the Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada, now the American Nurses Association. “I owe my life to that dear soul,” one patient was quoted as saying in the 1954 journal article. Mahoney’s guiding motto was, “Work more and better the coming year than the previous year.”Īfter she graduated, she became a private nurse, caring primarily for wealthy white patients whom she regarded as family. Mahoney’s sister, Ellen, attempted to complete the program as well but failed the final exam. The program’s standards were high, and few succeeded of the 40 or so applicants in 1878, nine withdrew, 13 were considered unsuitable and nine of 18 who had been accepted for trial failed to be admitted. At just five feet tall and 90 pounds, Mahoney was a slight but hardworking student.
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