Highlighting just a few of the many prominent nurses in history
Mary Seacole (1805-1881)
A British-Jamaican nurse and businesswoman who set up the “British Hotel” to care for soldiers during the Crimean War
While Florence Nightingale rose to international prominence following her time nursing soldiers during the Crimean War, another heroic nurse was on the front lines of the conflict: mixed-race nurse Mary Seacole. Seacole traveled the world extensively, nursing cholera patients during an outbreak in Panama, before seeking a nursing position in the Crimea – for which she was rejected. Undeterred, she established the “British Hotel,” which catered to sick and recovering soldiers. She visited battlefields to tend to the wounded and was referred to warmly by soldiers as “Mother Seacole.” In 2004, more than 10,000 people voted for Seacole as the “Greatest Black Briton,” and a statue of the famous nurse was unveiled in London in 2016.
Harriet Tubman (1822-1913)
A famed conductor of the Underground Railroad, the former slave also acted as a nurse during the Civil War, tending to Black soldiers and liberated slaves
Perhaps best known as an abolitionist and conductor of the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman also made significant contributions in nursing. In addition to caring for the people she rescued from slavery, she served as a nurse for the Union Army, traveling to South Carolina to tend to sick and wounded Black soldiers and those newly liberated from enslavement. This passion for care continued on after the war, when she established the Harriet Tubman Home for Aged & Indigent Negroes in 1908, where she cared for its residents until her death in 1913.
Mary Eliza Mahoney (1845-1926)
First Black woman to earn a professional nursing license in the U.S.
While many African Americans served as nurses before her, Mary Ezra Mahoney often carries the distinction of being the first Black nurse in history to earn a professional nursing license in the U.S. and the first to graduate from an American nursing school. Born to freed slaves, she worked as janitor, cook, washerwoman and nurse’s aide over the course of 15 years at the New England Hospital for Women and Children, according to the National Women’s History Museum. At the age of 33, she entered the hospital’s nursing program and graduated 16 months later. As the first professionally trained and licensed Black nurse, she championed increased access to nursing education and fought against discrimination in the profession throughout her career, supporting the creation of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN) in 1908.