Black History Month - nurses celebrated

[-jt]

by Barbara Conklin, RN

February, 2004

Susie King Taylor was born into slavery in 1848 in Savannah, Georgia and given the name Susie Baker. Her grandmother was determined that Susie would not be denied an education, even though it was a crime at the time for black children to be educated. She sent Susie to a friend to learn how to read and write. Susie also received other "freedom lessons" from different families in Savannah. She once recalled, "We went every day about nine o'clock, with our books wrapped in paper to prevent the police or white persons from seeing them."

Susie grew up to become the first black Civil War nurse and the only one known to have kept a diary, and she eventually recorded her experiences in a book.

Volunteered to Nurse

In 1862, Susie, then 14 years old, was taken by Union soldiers to St. Simon's Island, Georgia. She served with the First Regiment of South Carolina volunteers, comprised of slaves freed by the Union Army. First assigned to be a laundress, and to teach the soldiers to read and write, she also served as a nurse because of her ability to assist the camp doctors in caring for injured soldiers.

In February 1863, there were several cases of varioloid (a mild form of smallpox) in the camp. The doctor was the only person who was supposed to tend to these patients, but Susie volunteered to assume responsibility for caring for the sickest men.

Susie recorded comments in her diary about supply shortages and her nursing care, remarking, "I was always happy to know my efforts were successful in camp, and also felt grateful for the appreciation of my service. I gave of my services willingly for four years and three months without receiving a dollar. I was glad however to ... care for the sick and afflicted comrades."

Susie often visited the sick and injured in the country's first hospital for black soldiers, in Beaumont, South Carolina, where she worked alongside Clara Barton, who would later found the Red Cross. Following the war, Susie moved to Boston and married Russell Taylor. Retaining her interest in nursing, she joined and then became president of the Women's Relief Corps, which provided assistance to soldiers and hospitals.

Susie writes Civil War Memoirs

Susie King Taylor was asked many times by the Army and the Women's Relief Corps to write a book about her experiences of Army life. She finally agreed, telling her readers that she was presenting her memories with the hope that "they may ...show how much service and good we can do to each other, and what sacrifices we can make for our liberty and rights, and that there were loyal women, as well as men, who did not fear shell or shot, who cared for the sick and dying, women who camped and fared as boys did, and who are still caring for the comrades in their declining years."

Denied a Pension

While Susie's memoirs were verified by Army officers to represent a truthful portrayal of her service, she received a letter in 1902 from the commanding officer of the First South Carolina Volunteers stating, "I most sincerely regret that through a technicality you are to be barred from having your name placed on the roll of pensioners, as an Army Nurse; for among all the number of heroic women whom the government is now rewarding, I know of no one more deserving than yourself."

Susie King Taylor died in 1912 in Boston at the age of sixty-four.

Author's note: Throughout my research I was so impressed with Susie King Taylor's outstanding service that I have written to President Bush, asking him to recognize her with the Medal of Honor. For more information, see: A Black Woman's Civil War Memoirs: Reminiscences of My Life in Camp (N.Y.: Markus Publishing, 1988).

Barbara Conklin is Assistant Director of NYSNA's Economic & General Welfare Program. She says her "passion about the empowerment of RNs" began to grow when she became a union delegate, in 1980. The first article in this new series about RN Activists-about Lillian Wald-was published in the January 2004 issue of REPORT.>>>

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All nurses can help Susie get the recognition she deserves by sending letters or emails of support for Ms. Conklin's request to Pres. Bush.

[happystudent, RN]

Thank you for sharing.........

[live4today, RN]

:balloons: ((((((((SUSIE KING TAYLOR)))))))) Thank you for all you did for the sick and wounded during your lifetime. You did it so unselfishly...without pay...without recognition...without a decent life for yourself. You make me proud to be a Black woman in nursing today. Rest in peace! :kiss

Thanks for sharing that here on a separate thread in honor of her memory, and I hope the medal of honor will finally be awarded in her memory by the President of These United States. :)

[-jt]

NYSNA REPORT: February 2004

Celebrating Nurses Of Color

Two Distinguished Nursing Schools

by Martha Gershun

New York State Nurses Association

Harlem Hospital Center School of Nursing (HHCSN) — 1923-1977

The President of the Alumni Association, Helen Somerville, generously provided information about HHCSN’s history. She reports that during the 1920s, the City of New York refused to accept black students into the city-run nursing program at Bellevue Hospital. William Vassall, in the name of his daughter Lurline, opposed the city’s position, enlisting community activists, ministers, and physicians in his cause. The city responded by challenging the group to find 20 young women capable of completing the rigorous program, exactly like that offered at Bellevue.

Recruitment letters were sent to schools and colleges in New York, the South, and the Caribbean, and in 1923 the first class — 20 young women (including Lurline Vassall), from almost as many states — entered the new nursing program at Harlem Hospital. During the 1920s and 1930s, graduates of HHCSN could be employed only at Harlem or Lincoln hospitals. Gradually, as the school affiliated with other institutions, such as Seaview Hospital, Queens General, and Bellevue, opportunities increased.

In 1945, Alida C. Dailey ’27 was appointed the first black Superintendent of Nursing Services and Principal of the School of Nursing. Col. Carol Jones ’67, remembers how frightened she was to move from her home in Pittsburgh to New York City. But she was determined to do it, because of the school’s excellent reputation. Her tuition, room, and board were about $300.

In the mid-1970s New York City closed all of its city-run schools of nursing. But HHCSN’s legacy lives on. The Alumni Association meets monthly at Harlem Hospital, in a room filled with pictures of every graduating class. The annual “homecoming” is held on the third Saturday in September. And the school’s motto, “The Highest in Standards – the Best in Service,” remains a benchmark for every nursing school graduate.

Lincoln School for Nurses – 1898-1961

“On a day in May, 1898, at 141st Street and Concord Avenue in the Bronx, the newly established School for Colored Females in Nursing Arts…admitted its first students.” According to Alumni Association Historian Dr. Janice Gray, this story actually begins more than 60 years earlier, with the establishment of a home and infirmary for indigent African-Americans.

As the infirmary grew into a hospital, and the need for nurses grew accordingly, this ground-breaking nursing school was created. The name was changed to Lincoln Hospital in 1902. The first student, Nettie Jarrett, was accepted in 1898. At the Alumnae Association’s Bi-Centennial Luncheon in 1976, Ivy Nathan Tinkler ’31 traced the history of the school, noting that in the early years many doctors objected to its founding on the grounds that “such training would be a waste of time because there would be no market for the services of colored nurses.

”By 1929, the demand for the school’s graduates was so great that a new residence and school building were constructed to accommodate 200 students and additional staff. Lincoln’s illustrious graduates include Tinkler, the first black Director of Nursing at the school, appointed in 1954. In 1999, Eunice Baskett ’54 spoke about the “Tinkler Legacy” at the dedication of the Ivy Nathan Tinkler Solarium at the NYSNA Foundation.

According to Tinkler, the reason for Lincoln’s closing was twofold: the school was operating at a deficit that the city refused to make up; and “the purpose for which the school originated no longer existed” – the qualified applicants would have been accepted at any nursing school in New York State. The Alumnae Association has donated many photographs and documents to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Looking back, Tinkler was proud to note that Lincoln’s graduates “have made significant contributions to our profession and to society…. Thank God for the kind of people whose concerns extended beyond themselves in serving humanity.”

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[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

Great Story and Pictures from Nursing Spectrum:

Black Nurses-On the

Forefront Throughout History

Marie O. Pitts Mosley, RN, EdD, PNP

Masthead Date February 09, 2004

http://community.nursingspectrum.com/MagazineArticles/article.cfm?AID=11397

1900-Jessie Sleet Scales was the first black district nurse in NYC and the first black public health nurse in the US.