AJPH HISTORY

The Eighteen of 1918–1919: Black Nurses and the Great Flu Pandemic in the

Marian Moser Jones, PhD, MPH, and Matilda Saines, BSc

This article examines the role of Black American nurses during the 1918–1919 influenza pan- study of nursing and racism in a demic and the aftermath of World War I. The pandemic caused at least 50 million deaths world- public health emergency, while wide and 675 000 in the United States. It occurred during a period of pervasive segregation and raising transhistorical questions: Do public health emergencies racial violence, in which Black Americans were routinely denied access to health, educational, spur advancements in health and political institutions. We discuss how an unsuccessful campaign by Black leaders for admis- equity? Or do they merely allow sion of Black nurses to the Red Cross, the Army Nurse Corps, and the Navy Nurse Corps during exploitation of already-margin- World War I eventually created opportunities for 18 Black nurses to serve in the army during alized persons? Although a single the pandemic and the war’s aftermath. Analyzing archival sources, news reports, and published case study cannot off er defi nitive materials, we examine these events in the context of nursing and early civil rights history. This answers, it can provide valuable analysis demonstrates that the pandemic incrementally advanced civil rights in the Army Nurse insights. Corps and Red Cross, while providing ephemeral opportunities for Black nurses overall. This case study reframes the response to epidemics and other public health emergencies as potential opportunities to advance health equity. (Am J Public Health. 2019;109: 877–884. doi: 10.2105/ BLACK WOMEN AND AJPH.2019.305003) NURSING Throughout US history, Black women have nursed the sick. Enslaved women cared 5 See also D’Antonio, p. 832. n 1918, Aileen Cole and in the United States. It also cre- for members of slaveholding IClara Rollins ached to be- ated opportunities for previously families while nursing their come Red Cross war nurses.1 excluded Black nurses, including own communities. Antislavery Cole, aged 24 years, had the fi rst 18 to serve in the Army crusaders Sojourner Truth and recently passed her registration Nurse Corps (ANC) between Harriet Tubman nursed soldiers exams, and Rollins, 34, had December 1918 and August and civilians during the Civil years of nursing experience.2 1919.6 War. 8 After this war revealed The two boarded with other Although Black nurses’ roles shortcomings in hospital nursing nurses in a Washington, DC, in World War I and the pandem- care, nurse training programs brick row house near Freed- ic have been noted by numerous began and admitted a few Black men’s Hospital, where they had historians, this article represents women. Many programs were all graduated from the rigorous the fi rst eff ort to move these based on Florence Nightingale’s nurse training school. The Red nurses from periphery to center, model of a hospital-based school, Cross had enrolled Cole and and to critically analyze their which provided instruction in Rollins on paper, but had done struggle to serve as a seminal scientifi c methods of sanita- nothing else: the US Army and episode in the long and ongo- tion and patient care.9 Students Navy, for which the Red Cross ing movement for civil rights worked in hospitals for 24 to 36 served as the offi cial recruiter, and racial health equity.7 Using months, while receiving room did not accept Black nurses.3 archival materials, news reports, and board.10 In October, the infl uenza census records, and published lit- Even before the US Supreme pandemic brought change. The erature, we highlight how Black Court’s 1896 Plessy v Ferguson Red Cross called up Cole, nurses fulfi lled a critical need for decision permitting racially “sep- Rollins, and several other Black skilled care during the pandemic arate but equal” public facilities, nurses for civilian duty, and and the war’s aftermath, but exclusion of Black Americans sent them to West Virginia to received little recognition. We from schools and hospitals had battle pandemic infl uenza.4 also show how nurses and Black become widespread.11 South- This 1918–1919 pandemic was community leaders viewed this ern nursing schools barred responsible for at least 50 million service as a political act. We pres- Black students, and Northern deaths worldwide and 675 000 ent this story as a historical case ones admitted very few.12 In

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the 1900 US Census, approxi- prove they were loyal Americans White nurses, for assignment mately 10 000 men and women who deserved the full benefi ts of to a training camp for Black identifi ed themselves as profes- citizenship.18 “Racially, this war soldiers.27 But these assignments sional or trained nurses, but this spells for us the most glorious failed to materialize. number included only 201 Black word in the vocabulary of free- In 1918, prominent Black Americans.13 dom—opportunity,” C.V. Ro- leaders vociferously challenged As historian Darlene Clark man, MD, a professor at Meharry this inaction. National Ur- Hine has shown, Black com- Medical School, stated.19 Over ban League Secretary Eugene munities responded to such 100 Black physicians served as Kinckle Jones wrote Scott, and exclusion by pooling resources US Army Medical Corps offi - Tuskegee Institute President to establish Black hospitals and cers, along with 12 Black dental Robert Moton wrote the Red hospital-based nurse training offi cers, 639 Black infantry of- Cross leadership, to call for the programs. Between 1891 and fi cers, and 400 000 Black enlisted immediate enrollment of Black 1907, 12 such nurse training men.20 Fourteen Black women nurses. Their exclusion “reacts programs opened for Black served as navy clerks.21 The War in a certain sort of indiff erence women, including ones at Department appointed Emmet on the part of colored people New York’s Lincoln Hospital, J. Scott, former Secretary of which ought not to be when the Chicago’s Provident Hospital, Tuskegee Institute, as its special country needs every ounce of and Freedmen’s Hospital in assistant for Negro aff airs.22 Scott eff ort along every available line,” Washington, DC.14 In 1908, worked as an intermediary be- Moton stated.28 In its annual Black women nurses formed the tween Black Americans and the meeting, the NAACP also voted National Association of Colored military on issues from discrimi- to allow its secretary to act to Graduate Nurses (NACGN). By nation to Black troop morale.23 “forward acceptance by the War the 1910 Census, 3010 Black However, Black nurses Department of Colored nurses women and about 200 Black were barred from serving. The overseas.”29 men self-identifi ed as profes- , a quasi- These actions elicited a re- sional or trained nurses.15 governmental humanitarian sponse from Delano. She wrote In the 1910s, trained Black organization, recruited about Jones that she had “deferred” en- female nurses nevertheless faced 23 000 nurses for the ANC and rollment of Black nurses, “on the steep obstacles. Most Whites and the Navy Nurse Corps.24 The advice of colored people with some Black men, according to organization restricted enroll- whom I have consulted, feeling Hine, viewed them through a ment to graduates of reputable that if their assignment to duty “triple index of inferiority”: as hospital-based nursing schools was delayed for any great length nurses (not doctors), women who had passed a physical of time it would make the nurses (not men), and Black (not examination and obtained a restless and discontented.”30 White).16 In 1916, the Ameri- positive character reference from But now Delano promised to can Nurses Association began a supervisor.25 By 1917, most begin their enrollment imme- requiring membership in a state trained Black nurses could meet diately—with one condition. nursing association. Associations these qualifi cations.26 But in Although each enrolled Black in 16 states and the District 1911, the Red Cross had voted nurse, like any other Red Cross of Columbia excluded Black to exclude Black nurses from nurse, would receive a num- nurses, eff ectively barring them enrollment, citing a surgeon bered badge, Black nurses’ badge from membership in the Ameri- general’s statement that the army numbers would be preceded by can Nurses Association.17 would be unable to provide suit- an “A” to prevent them from able (i.e., segregated) quarters for being assigned to duty “without these nurses. In 1917, the Red reference to their color.”31 RACE AND CITIZENSHIP Cross reversed this policy. Then, By the November 11 armi- IN WORLD WAR I after NACGN President Adah stice, the Red Cross had enrolled When the United States Bell Thoms protested that no 77 Black nurses but still had not entered World War I in 1917, nurses were actually being en- assigned any to military duty.32 many Black Americans, includ- rolled, Red Cross nursing leader This slow response stemmed ing those in health professions, Jane Delano informed Thoms from “delays in the provision volunteered for military service that she was ready to enroll 150 of separate quarters and mess or joined voluntary patriotic qualifi ed Black nurses, with the for these women,” according organizations. Some did so to same “pay and allowances” as to Julia Stimson, later ANC

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superintendent.33 This rationale Henry Street Settlement, and our soldiers, didn’t you?” Cole however, holds little weight con- during the war worked for the recalled. Instead, Maxwell said he sidering that White army nurses US Public Health Service near was sending the nurses to camps were often quartered in hastily an army cantonment in Chat- where miners were “dying like erected shacks or tents that of- tanooga, Tennessee, before the fl ies.” The fl u had slowed coal fered scant protection against rain, Red Cross enrolled her and production—vital for keeping cold, or German bombardment.34 assigned her to Jackson, also in troop transports running—and The more likely reason is that Tennessee.40 When infl uenza in some areas coal cars had army and navy offi cials, imbued struck, Elliott began nursing reportedly become “as scarce as with anti-Black racism, did not both Black and White patients. hen’s teeth.”46 On October 23, want any Black women in their According to one account, El- one coal company in Preston Nurse Corps. This explanation is liott learned to drive a car so she County reported 190 out of 200 consistent with the poor, some- could reach patients in remote workers sick with fl u.47 Major times cruel treatment experienced areas. Eventually, Elliott herself Maxwell immediately sent Cole by Black troops.35 Moreover, many developed infl uenza with cardiac to this remote area. Americans viewed military nurses complications and returned to With the company doctor, as needed symbols of wholesome Freedmen’s as a patient.41 Cole traveled through Preston womanhood in the masculine In October 1918, the Red County in “a rattling old Ford” war zone, and prevailing racist Cross also sent Rollins and to deliver aspirin, medicinal ideologies held that only White Cole, along with Cole’s Freed- whiskey, and cough syrup to pa- women could truly embody men’s classmate Susie Bould- tients. Nobody mentioned seg- feminine virtue.36 ing, to nurse infl uenza patients regated quarters.48 The miners, near Charleston, West Virginia.42 she remembered, “had never had Cole had grown up in Piqua, nursing service, but they were so PUBLIC HEALTH AND FLU Ohio, and had lost her mother glad to see us.”49 The company OPEN DOORS at age 13 years. She had at- then off ered Cole a permanent Thoms had advised Black tended Oberlin College, but position at a high salary. Such nurses, when barred from had dropped out because lack a welcome was unusual in a military service, to look for of funds had forced her to work region known to be inhospitable other ways to serve during the full-time in domestic service to Black persons, but infl uenza war. “[T]he service we render while attending school. Freed- created unusual circumstances.50 in our own communities will men’s had provided a second As the pandemic peaked, count for just as much, if wisely chance.43 The school’s rigors and trained Black nurses outside the directed,” she had counseled.37 small size inspired close bonds Red Cross also gained opportu- Frances Reed Elliott, the fi rst among students. In 1918, Cole nities. “The demand for nurses Black nurse enrolled by the Red and Rollins lived in the home has been so great that we have Cross (Badge 1-A), embodied of Rollins’ elder sister, an 1897 been unable to furnish adequate this strategy. Elliott, the or- Freedmen’s graduate; Cole and supply,” Thoms told the New York phaned daughter of a White Boulding had graduated together Age. “A number of our nurses plantation heiress and a Black- in a class of only 20 nurses.44 The have been sent to homes that Cherokee man, had graduated close relationships between this hitherto have not been opened from Freedmen’s in 1913.38 In trio must have been reassuring as to colored nurses.” These homes 1917, she applied to the Red they headed to Appalachia. included the estates of New- Cross’s Town and Country When Cole, Rollins, and port socialites.51 A family in Nursing Service, which sent Boulding arrived in Charleston, Winnemucca, Nevada, reportedly nurses to do public health work the pandemic was raging. Upon paid a Black nurse $30 a day for in underserved communities.39 entering a high school that had her services—half the monthly The Red Cross did not initially been converted into an infl uenza salary of a White army nurse.52 accept Elliott, but, in an unusual hospital, they found all of the Carnegie Steel in Pittsburgh, move that refl ected recogni- patients dead on their cots.45 A Pennsylvania, hired 16 Black tion of her exceptional abilities, Major Maxwell greeted them, nurses to care for employees sick sponsored her in public health and said, “I’ll bet you young with fl u. By the end of the crisis, nursing courses at Columbia nurses had your hearts set on Pittsburgh restaurants that had University. Elliott then became going overseas, wearing romantic refused the nurses service report- a visiting nurse at New York’s Red Cross uniforms, to nurse edly insisted on participating in

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colored nurses to be forever humiliated?59

Scott queried the ANC, prompting a statement from Leary that “we had a suffi cient number of help and did not need the services of more.” Leary wrote that she had told the nurse “that later on we would have quarters for colored nurses, and that we would be glad to have her when we needed her services.”60 In this preantibiotic era, attentive nurs- ing care proved the only eff ec- tive treatment of curbing symp- toms of infl uenza and preventing deadlier secondary pneumonia infections.61 Camp Sherman “had the highest death rate of any [army] camp in the country” during the fall pandemic.62 The fact that a trained nurse was rejected during this emergency Photograph of the Camp Sherman a farewell reception “since these In other camps, Black nurses speaks volumes about the inten- Nurses. Courtesy, Special Collections nurses had rendered their com- were not welcome. On Octo- and University Archives, University sity of racial discrimination that munity such good service.”53 ber 9, after Camp Sherman in of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries. Black nurses faced. Printed with permission. Despite the fact that infl uenza Chillicothe, Ohio, reported 115 blazed through many military fl u deaths in 36 hours, newspa- training camps, neither the pers printed a plea from chief THE FIRST EIGHTEEN army nor navy made such an nurse Katherine Leary: “Don’t Two days after the armistice, about-face.54 At Camp Sevier, stop to telephone and write if when the army fi nally reversed in Greenville, South Carolina, you are a graduate nurse, but its stance on Black nurses, Cole “about fi fty per cent of the jump on the fi rst train and come was one of the fi rst called up.63 nurses were off duty, sick, and to Camp Sherman.”57 A Black She was sent to Camp Sherman, the hospital contained about nurse from Columbus, Ohio, re- along with Rollins, Boulding, three thousand patients,” Chief sponded immediately. But when and fi ve other Freedmen’s gradu- Army Nurse Sayres L. Milliken she arrived, Leary turned her ates: Sophia A. Hill, Marion H. later wrote. But “fully seventy- away. The nurse then “came back Brown, Nancy Jeanette Minnis, fi ve per cent of the nurses were to the Superintendent’s offi ce Lillian Spears, and C. Jeannette women of Southern birth, and saw between twenty and West; along with Lillian Ball, and had very positive objec- thirty [W]hite nurses accepted,” a graduate of Battle Creek tions to working with colored the NAACP magazine The Crisis Sanitarium and Hospital Nursing nurses.” However, Milliken reported.58 Mary Waring of the School.64 The army sent nine hired several Black nurses on National Association of Colored others, also from leading Black a temporary basis to meet the Women wrote Scott: nurse training schools, to Camp “imperative” need. They were Grant near Rockford, Illinois: allocated a separate quarters and This unpatriotic head nurse Eva Clay, Willie DePriest, Vir- mess, assigned to “subordinate” turned this trained nurse away ginia R. Steele, Mabel Williams, positions, then dismissed three while colored soldiers were Magnolia Diggs, Nettie B. Vick, weeks later.55 Black nurses also falling in the ranks from influ- Frances A. Stewart, Pearl Helen served temporarily during enza, dying in the hospitals for Billings, and Anna E. Oliver lack of nurses; and suffering 65 the pandemic at Camp Pike, unattended because of the epi- Ramos. All took the offi cer’s Arkansas, and likely several demic which made the usual oath and were subject to military additional installations.56 nursing force inadequate. Are discipline, although military

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nurses at this time served without nel,” Roberts wrote.73 Brown in their Red Cross capes.78 These rank, commission, or offi cer- earned accolades for her work documents indicate that promi- grade pay.66 in the operating room, and Ball, nent Black Americans viewed The Camp Sherman nurses the only trained masseuse at the the nurses’ work as important to were assigned to segregated but camp, found that “her color did the larger political struggle. otherwise adequate quarters and not matter since her services The 18 nurses expressed simi- met with Chief Nurse Mary M. were needed,” according to Ma- lar sentiments in a signed August Roberts upon arrival. Roberts bel Keaton Staupers, a classmate 1919 letter to NACGN. They “received them very cordially,” of Cole and Boulding’s and, later, had sought to demonstrate that Cole dutifully reported to Red NACGN president.74 Neverthe- they were “morally effi cient as Cross nursing leaders (who less, Roberts wrote that these well as professional,” they wrote. often directed nurses to write nurses “showed little executive “We were practical and technical them about their experiences).67 ability.” (She had also avoided as- in all of our work, our work Roberts, however, remembered signing any to supervisory posts stood the test, we had obstacles these events diff erently. When where they would have had op- to confront us, but we fought the order came for a “colored portunities to demonstrate such our way victorious. We left the unit” of nurses, she later wrote, ability.) Anne Williamson, chief army with commendation, that “I was quite sure I was about to nurse at Camp Grant, stated that we have raised the standard of meet my Waterloo.” She recalled the nine Black nurses she had the nursing profession twenty telling the nurses they should supervised were “serious minded, years higher.”79 At the NACGN “not expect to share in the social quiet, business like young annual meeting, even as attendees activities of the [W]hite nurses” women, well qualifi ed to take discussed the postwar race riots but that she “considered it an charge of wards, had our colored endangering US Black commu- opportunity for them, not only patients been segregated.”75 nities, Thoms allowed this upbeat individually but racially, and that These supervisors’ comments re- letter to be read. I would make every eff ort to veal the limitations and prejudice But Thoms’ view of the give them credit for every good the Black nurses faced. nurses’ service was tinged with thing they did.”68 Black communities viewed bitterness. In the April–June The nurses initially cared the 18 nurses more highly. At 1919 issue of the Journal of the for fl u patients, but as infl uenza both camps, they were wel- National Medical Association, she deaths subsided their duties comed by Black offi cers and recounted: shifted.69 Both camps were being members of the local commu- transformed into demobiliza- nity.76 In March 1919, Mattie The day after the armistice was tion centers, where thousands McGhee, widow of civil rights signed, colored nurses began to of soldiers were processed for pioneer Frederick McGhee, receive telegrams thick and fast, 70 advising them to be ready for discharge. In early 1919, the sent The Crisis a photo of overseas duty “if called.” They camps’ hospitals also began the Camp Sherman nurses, had been ready since the day receiving the 50 000 severely with an attached note stating: the United States entered the wounded, gassed, and disabled “These young women willingly war, if being willing, eager and soldiers from hospitals overseas.71 responded to the call when the PREPARED to serve when- ever and wherever needed, is The nurses served success- country needed them, some implied by being ready. At least fully in wards that included both of them giving valiant service as nearly ready as any other Black and White patients, even during the Flu Epidemic, under nurse, or as our own boys though their White supervisors the American Red Cross. Hav- were when called to do their refused to view them as equals.72 ing been assigned to military bit toward making the world “safe for democracy.” Naturally Rollins became especially popu- duty they have faced every the “call” did not come for lar. Roberts later recalled that diffi culty and are winning many overseas duty, but a few were when she tried to move Rollins small battles for the race.” She sent to camps here, where they to a new ward, the patients in added that the chief nurse had were as happy as could be, to her old ward petitioned Roberts reported: “They have done well go, and are now serving with much credit.80 to request that she remain. “They with a vengeance.”77 This note always called her ‘the major’ and and photograph were never the day before she left camp published, but the May 1919 Thoms’ words refl ect the wis- they had a special ceremony and issue of The Crisis featured a dom and weariness of one who made her a Lieutenant Colo- photo of the Camp Grant nurses had long been fi ghting for racial

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equality in nursing. She knew and established a nurse training began the peacetime draft, the that while the 18 had broken the school at Detroit’s new Black navy refused to accept any Black color line in the ANC, most of hospital, Dunbar Memorial.85 nurses, and the army stipulated the country’s 3000 trained Black Cole became superintendent of that it would only enroll Black nurses had been left out. nurses at Booker T. Washington nurses when and if “separate Sanatorium in Harlem, the fi rst black wards” were opened in private hospital in New York military hospitals. But the fact CONCLUSION City established by Black physi- that 18 Black ANC nurses had This story might seem like cians.86 Then, in an era when served in a racially integrated just another example of “disil- few cities employed Black public military camp in 1919 had cre- lusionment and dashed expecta- health nurses, Elliott and Cole ated a precedent. Staupers, as tions because of the resilience of became public health nurses in NACGN president, explicitly White racism,” as military histo- Detroit and , re- pointed to this precedent in rian Chad Williams has charac- spectively, where they addressed objecting to this policy.89 The terized the typical historiograph- crisis-level infant mortality army then agreed to accept a ical framing of Black Americans’ and other community health quota of 56 Black nurses, but experience during the World problems.87 Marion Brown, only incrementally expanded War I era.81 Indeed, Black nurses’ another of the 18, became assis- these quotas until 1944, when exclusion from wartime military tant superintendent of nurses at an acute nursing shortage and service meant they were denied Freedmen’s and president of the organized campaigns for civil the status and benefi ts accorded Freedmen’s Alumnae Associa- rights led by Staupers and others nurse veterans. These nurses rose tion. In 1935, she worked with prompted the ANC to fi nally in status when suff rage advocates NACGN leaders to success- drop the quotas.90 More than cited their wartime service in fully pressure Catholic Univer- 600 Black nurses served in the successfully arguing that women sity—the only Washington, DC, ANC during World War II. deserved the vote.82 World War I university off ering graduate Afterward, postwar fi ghts for full nurse veterans also gained access nursing courses—to stop bar- racial equality within the nursing to state veterans’ bonuses, free ring qualifi ed Black nurses from profession paved the way for treatment in veterans’ hospitals admission to these programs. Black women to rise to positions and lodging in veterans’ homes, This victory enabled local Black of national leadership in military inexpensive insurance policies, nurses to advance to leadership and civilian nursing during the and Red Cross scholarships for positions and gain positions as late 20th century.91 Although postgraduate study in public public health nurses.88 these later-serving nurses have health nursing, while develop- These nurses’ record of received appropriate recognition, ing powerful social and profes- leadership and opening doors it is important to acknowledge sional networks.83 The exclu- for others has transhistorical that they stand on the shoulders sion of Black nurses from these implications. It indicates that of 18 Black nurses who scaled manifold benefi ts exacerbated the opportunities created by a a wall of bigotry 100 years existing racial discrimination public health crisis may translate ago. against them. to lasting gains for members of However, when the post- marginalized groups. But the About the Authors At the time of the study, Marian Moser Jones war lives of the fi rst Black Red larger story also suggests that and Matilda Saines were with the University Cross nurses are examined, a such meaningful expansion of of Maryland School of Public Health, College more complex picture emerges. opportunity only occurs when Park. Correspondence should be sent to Marian For these nurses, the wartime communities organize and unite Moser Jones, PhD, MPH, Department of experience of “making a way to push for greater inclusion be- Family Science, 1142BB School of Public out of no way,” in the words of fore, during, and after the crisis. Health Building (Bldg #255), University of Maryland School of Public Health, College the traditional Black folk saying, Furthermore, it indicates that Park, MD 20742 (e-mail: moserj@umd. became a springboard for careers lasting gains from such “crisis edu). Reprints can be ordered at http://www. advancing Black women within opportunities” may take genera- ajph.org by clicking the “Reprints” link. This article was accepted January 12, the nursing profession and tions to manifest. 2019. improving the health of Black The full legacy forged by doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2019.305003 communities.84 Elliott moved the fi rst 18 did not become Contributors to Detroit, Michigan, follow- apparent until World War II. In M. M. Jones conceptualized the article ing her recovery from infl uenza 1940, when the United States and led the research and writing process.

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M. Saines conducted substantial archival 6. Anne Williamson, “A Brief History of Black men from intimate contact with research and review of secondary sources, the Colored Nurses Who Were Stationed White bodies. See Charissa R. Threat, wrote portions of the article, conceptual- at Camp Grant, December 3 to July 10, Nursing Civil Rights: Gender and Race in ized the title concept, and participated in 1919,” February 9, 1922, folder “Colored the Army Nurse Corps (Urbana, IL: Uni- editing and proofreading versions of the Nurses,” box 392, group 2 (hereafter, ab- versity of Illinois Press, 2015), 18–20, manuscript. breviated as CN: 392:2), RG 200, NACP. 55–56. Adah Bell Thoms, Pathfinders: A History 17. Mabel Keaton Staupers, No Time for Acknowledgments of the Progress of Colored Graduate Nurses Prejudice: A Story of the Integration of Ne- The Ronald E. McNair Post-Bacca- (New York, NY: Kay Printing House, groes in Nursing in the United States (New laureate Achievement Program at the 1929), 160. York, NY: MacMillan, 1961), 14, 123. University of Maryland and its associate 7. Mary Elizabeth Carnegie, The Path 18. Kidada E. Williams, They Left Great director, Rhea Roper Nedd, PhD, funded We Tread: Blacks in Nursing, 1854–1984 Marks on Me: African American Testimonies and supported M. Saines in her research (New York, NY: Lippincott, 1986), 165– of Racial Violence From Emancipation to for this article. M. M. Jones received a 166. Darlene Clark Hine, Black Women World War I (New York, NY: New York Karen Buhler-Wilkerson fellowship from in White: Racial Conflict and Cooperation University Press, 2012), 164. the University of Pennsylvania Barbara in the Nursing Profession, 1890–1950 Bates Center for the Study of the History (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University 19. C.V. Roman, “The War—What Does of Nursing, which funded research for Press, 1989), 103; Darlene Clark Hine, It Mean? What Should We Do?” Journal the larger project of which this work “The Call That Never Came: Black of the National Medical Association 10, no. 1 is a part. Women Nurses and World War I, an (1918), 41–42. We thank Jean Shulman, RN, indomi- Historical Note,” Indiana Military History table American Red Cross archivist, for 20. W. Douglas Fisher and Joann Buckley, Journal 8 (January 1983): 23–27; Mary T. African American Doctors of World War I: pointing us toward and providing us with Sarnecky, A History of the US Army Nurse archival sources; Sandra Crouse Quinn, The Lives of 104 Volunteers (Jefferson, NC: Corps (Philadelphia, PA: University of McFarland & Co, 2016), 3–5. chair of Family Science at the University Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 127–128; Carol of Maryland School of Public Health, for R. Byerly, Fever of War: The Influenza Epi- 21. Kelly Miller, Kelly Miller’s History of encouraging and supporting this project; demic in the US Army During World War I the World War for Human Rights (Washing- and Darlene Clark Hine, the path- (New York, NY: NYU Press, 2005), 145; ton, DC: A. Jenkins, 1919), 597–598. breaking historian whose work serves Jessica L. Adler, Burdens of War: Creating 22. David Kennedy, Over Here: The First as a foundation for our scholarship. the United States Veterans Health System World War and American Society, 2nd ed. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Uni- (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Confl icts of Interest versity Press, 2017), 64; Nancy Bristow, 2004), 160. Neither author has a confl ict of interest American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 23. Nina Mjagkij, Loyalty in a Time of to report. 1918 Influenza Pandemic (New York, NY: Trial: The African American Experience Dur- Oxford University Press, 2012), 134–135. Endnotes ing World War I (New York, NY: Rowman 8. Hine, Black Women in White, 3–4. 1. Aileen Cole Stewart, “Ready to & Littlefield, 2011), 71, 100, 132–133. Serve,” American Journal of Nursing 63, no. 9. Ibid, 4; Patricia D’Antonio, American 24. Lavinia L. Dock, Sarah Elizabeth 9 (1963): 85–87. Nursing: A History of Knowledge, Authority, Pickett, Clara D. Noyes, Fannie F. Clem- and the Meaning of Work (Baltimore, MD: 2. Boyd’s Directory of the District of Colum- ent, Elizabeth G. Fox, and Anna R. Van Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), bia for 1916 (Washington, DC: R. L. Polk, Meter, History of American Red Cross 6–28. 1916), 1816; Surgeon General to Aileen Nursing (New York, NY: MacMillan, Bertha Cole, November 22, 1918, Aileen 10. D’Antonio, American Nursing, 40, 57. 1922), 74–75, 97–100. Cole Stewart File, Files of American Red 11. Alan Brinkley, The Unfinished Nation: 25. Ibid, 104. Cross Nurses, 1916–1959 (hereafter ab- A Concise History of the American People 26. Staupers, No Time for Prejudice, 12. breviated as RC Nurses): Records of the (New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2008), American National Red Cross, Record 419–420; Mitchell F. Rice and Woodrow 27. Dock et al., History of American Red Group 200 (hereafter, RG 200): US Jones, Jr, Public Policy and the Black Hospi- Cross Nursing, 405–406; Jane A. Delano National Archives and Records Adminis- tal: From Slavery to Segregation to Integration to Thoms, September 3, 1917, reprinted tration, College Park (hereafter, NACP); (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), in Thoms, Pathfinders, 158–159; Na- Report of the Freedmen’s Hospital to the Sec- 15–16. tional Association of Colored Graduate retary of the Interior for the Fiscal Year Ended Nurses (NACGN) Annual Meeting June 30, 1920 (Washington, DC: Gov- 12. Hine, Black Women in White, 3. Minutes, 1916, 1917, NACGN Records, ernment Printing Office [GPO], 1921), 13. Patricia D’Antonio and Jean C. 1908–1951, New York Public Library, 40–41; Fourteenth Census of the United Whelan, “Counting Nurses: The Power Schomburg Center for Research in States:1920—Population, roll T625_211, of Historical Census Data,” Journal Black Culture Collections (NACGN: page 12A, Enumeration District 199. of Clinical Nursing 18, no. 19 (2009): Schomburg). 3. Roster of first 150 enrolled Black 2717–2724. 28. Robert R. Moton to Emmett J. nurses, American Red Cross (ARC) ar- 14. Hine, Black Women in White, 9; W. Scott, May 20, 1918, RG 200, NACP, chives, Washington, DC. Montague Cobb, “A Short History of cited in Hine, Black Women in White, 104; 4. Stewart, “Ready to Serve.” Freedmen’s Hospital,” Journal of the Na- Byron Deacon to Eugene Kinckle Jones, tional Medical Association 54, no. 3 (1962): May 23, 1918; Scott to Delano, August 5. Jeffrey K. Taubenberger and David M. 271–287. 29, 1918, CN: 392:2:200: NACP. Morens, “The Mother of All Pandemics Is 100 Years Old (and Going Strong)!” 15. D’Antonio and Whelan, “Counting 29. NAACP, Minutes of the Meeting of American Journal of Public Health 108, no. Nurses.” the Board of Directors, July 8, 1918, 10. 11 (2018): 1449–1454. US Centers for 16. Hine, Black Women in White, xviii. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers, Special Collec- Disease Control and Prevention, “History Black male nurses also faced challenges tions and University Archives, University of 1918 Flu Pandemic,” https://www. and were very few in number due to of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries (Du cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918- the tiny number of nursing schools for Bois Papers: UMA). commemoration/1918-pandemic-his- men, exclusion of Black men from these 30. Delano to Jones, May 25, 1918, CN: tory.htm (accessed September 14, 2018). schools, and social customs prohibiting 392:2:200: NACP.

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31. Delano to the Division Directors, roll T625_211, page 12A, Enumeration 63. Roster of first 150 Black nurses, 76. “Get To-Gether Party,” Scioto Gazette, June 10, 1918, CN: 392:2:200: NACP. District 199. ARC; Clara Noyes to Cole, November December 7, 1918, 3; “Nurses’ Dinner 32. Roster of first 150 Black nurses, 45. Stewart, “Ready to Serve,” 85–86. 13, 1918, Stewart Folder, RC Nurses: at Camp Grant,” New York Age, January RG 200: NACP. 18, 1919, 2. ARC. 46. Ibid, 86; Sfc. Rudi Williams, “Recol- 77. “The McGhee’s of St. Paul,” The Cri- 33. Maj. Julia C. Stimson, “The Army lections of an Early Beginning,” un- 64. “Nursing News and Announce- sis 40, no. 6 (1933): 130; McGee, “Some Nurse Corps,” in Charles Lynch, Frank named US Army Publication, February ments,” American Journal of Nursing 19, Race Women,” Du Bois Papers: UMA. W. Weed, and Loy McAfee, eds., The 15, 1974, 8–9, in Stewart Folder, RC no. 5 (1919), 395; Report of the Freedmen’s Medical Department of the United States Nurses: RG 200: NACP; “Rose to See Hospital 1918, 34–38; Annual Report of 78. “Red Cross Nurses, Camp Grant,” Army in the World War XIII (Washington, Fuel Office Orders Are Obeyed to the the Battle Creek Sanitarium and Hospital, The Crisis 18, no. 1 (May 1919), 22. 1910–1911 (Battle Creek, MI, 1912), 46; DC: GPO, 1927), 292. Letter,” Fairmont West Virginian, Novem- 79. “To the Twelfth Annual Convention ber 11, 1918, 4. Mattie McGee, “Some Race Women,” 34. Irene Brewster, “The Nurses’ Side of enc. in McGee to Editor, The Crisis, of Colored Graduate Nurses Sitting in It,” 13–14, Brewster Papers, Collection 47. “Zone Changes Broaden Market for March 9, 1919, Du Bois Papers: UMA; Boston, Mass,” August 19, 1919, Annual #1507, Women in Military Service for W.Va. Coal,” Fairmont West Virginian, Oc- Roster of first 150 Black nurses, ARC. Meeting Minutes, NACGN: Schomburg. tober 23, 1918, 1, 8. America Archives, Arlington, VA; Maude 80. Adah Bell Thoms, “Of Interest to Frances Essig, “My Trip Abroad With 65. “Nursing News and Announce- 48. Stewart, “Ready to Serve.” ments,” American Journal of Nursing 19, no. Nurses,” Journal of the National Medical As- Uncle Sam—1917–1919,” Illinois Wes- sociation 11, no. 2 (1919), 86. leyan University Historical Collections, 49. Stewart interview, WWI Question- 5 (1919): 395; Roster of first 150 Black Bloomington, IL, http://collections. naire Collection, USAHEC. nurses, ARC; “Nurses’ Dinner at Camp 81. Williams, Torchbearers of Democracy, 5. Grant,” New York Age, January 18, 1919, 2. carli.illinois.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ 50. Stewart, “Ready to Serve,” 87; Pollitt, 82. Ida Husted Harper, ed., The History of iwu_histph/id/1247 (accessed August African American and Cherokee Nurses, 14. 66. Sarnecky, A History of the US Army Woman Suffrage: Vol. 5, 1900–1920 (New 14, 2018). 51. “Colored Nurses Are Very Much in Nurse Corps, 142–143. York: J. J. Little & Ives, 1922), 591–592. 35. Chad L. Williams, Torchbearers of Demand,” New York Age, October 12, 67. Dock et al., History of American Red 83. Ibid, 134, 136, 139, 142; Dock et al., Democracy: African American Soldiers in the 1918, 1. Cross Nursing, 407; Stewart, “Ready to History of American Red Cross Nursing, World War I Era (Chapel Hill, NC: Uni- 52. “Horizons,” The Crisis 17, no. 4 (Feb- Serve,” 87; Aurel Pardee (Baker) Diary, 1283–1285; Mary A. Hickey, “Nurses in versity of North Carolina Press, 2010), ruary 1919), 196; Dock et al., History of April 21, 1913, Baker Papers, Wisconsin the American Legion,” American Journal 6, 88, 111. American Red Cross Nursing, 374. Historical Society, Madison, WI: Mabel of Nursing 28, no. 6 (1928), 590–591; “Colonel Florence A. Blanchfield” [Bio], 36. Patricia Morton, Disfigured Images: The T. Boardman to Mrs. Harcourt, Jun. 1, 53. “League Begins Ten Day Campaign Folder 2, Box 1, Blanchfield Collection, Historical Assault on Afro-American Women 1915, Folder 591.4 Medical Relief Units to Raise $25,000,” New York Age, Febru- Howard Gottlieb Archival Research Li- (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991), Austria-Hungary and Germany, Box 18, ary 15, 1919, 5. brary, Boston University. 10, 11, 22. Grp 1, RG 200, NACP. 54. Edwin O. Jordan, Epidemic Influenza: 84. This Black folk saying is based on the 37. Thoms, “Tenth Annual Address of 68. Mary M. Roberts to Maj. Julia Stim- A Survey (Chicago, IL: American Medical Biblical passage in Isaiah 43:16–19. See the National Association of Colored son, February 3, 1922, CN: 392:2:200: Association, 1927), 118–122, 192–193. Wolfgang Mieder, Making a Way Out of Graduate Nurses,” in Mary F. Clark, “Of NACP. 55. Sayers L. Milliken, “Colored Nurses No Way: Martin Luther King’s Sermonic Interest to Nurses,” Journal of the Na- at Camp Sevier, Greenville, South Caro- 69. Stewart interview, WWI Question- Proverbial Rhetoric (New York, NY: Peter tional Medical Association 9, no. 4 (1917), lina, in 1918,” February 27, 1922, CN: naire Collection, USAHEC; Annual Lang, 2010), ix. 209–210. Report of the Surgeon General, US Army 392:2:200: NACP. 85. Pitrone, Trailblazer, 104–105; Pollitt, 38. Phoebe Pollitt, African American and to the Secretary of War 1919, vol. 1, 295, 56. Lynch, Weed, and McAffee, The Medi- African American and Cherokee Nurses, Cherokee Nurses in Appalachia: A History, 297, 534. cal Department of the United States Army in 118–119. 1900–1965 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & the World War XIII, 292; Sarnecky, A His- 70. “Buckeye Briefs,” Lancaster Eagle Ga- Company, 2016), 113. zette, December 4, 1918, 1. 86. “Booker T. Washington Sanitarium’s tory of the Army Nurse Corps, 128. First Year,” New York Age, June 25, 1921, 39. Sandra Lewenson, “Hidden & For- 57. “Checked! Death Rate Lower 71. “Hospitals Are Ready for Men: 3; Frances R. Davis, Fifteenth Census of the gotten: Being Black in the American Among Soldiers Stationed at Camp Wounded to Be Sent to Home Stations,” United States: 1930—Population; Census Red Cross Town & Country Nursing Sherman,” Cincinnati Enquirer, October Lansing State Journal, December 3, 1918, Place: Detroit, Wayne, Michigan; page Service, 1912–1948,” Nursing History Re- 10, 1918, 5. 1; “In Training Camps,” Lancaster Eagle 14A, Enumeration District 0514, FHL view 27 (2019): 15–28. Gazette, December 4, 1918, 1; “Soldiers 58. “A Day’s Work at the National Of- microfilm 2340788. 40. Pollit, African American and Cherokee Leave on Holiday Furlos [sic],” Akron fice,” The Crisis 17, no. 2 (December Evening Times, December 24, 1918, 1; 87. Pitrone, Trailblazer, 106–107; Sfc. Nurses, 113–117; Thoms, Pathfinders, 1918), 70–71. Rudi Williams, “Recollections of an 47–50; “Assign Colored Nurses to Base Stewart interview, WWI Questionnaire 59. Dr. Mary Fitzbutler Waring to Scott, Collection, USAHEC; “Hayes Hard Hit Early Beginning,” Stewart Folder, RC Hospitals ‘Over There’,” New York Age, Nurses: RG 200: NACP. July 28, 1918, 1. October 26, 1918, CN: 392:2:200: When Trapped by Germans at Vimy,” NACP. Belvidere Daily Republican, January 17, 88. Staupers, No Time for Prejudice, 36. 41. Jean Pitrone, Trailblazer: Negro Nurse 1919, 3. in the American Red Cross (New York, NY: 60. Scott to J. R. Hamlen, Red Cross, 89. Threat, Nursing Civil Rights, 38. November 8, 1918; Delano to Thomp- Harcourt, 1969), 101–102. 72. Roberts to Stimson, February 3, 90. Ibid, 43–49. son, November 14, 1918; Catherine 1922; Williamson, “A Brief History of 42. Stewart, “Ready to Serve.” L. Leary to Thompson, November 21, the Colored Nurses Who Were Stationed 91. Ibid, 1. 43. Ibid; Stewart interview, Stewart file, 1918; Thompson to Delano, November at Camp Grant,” CN: 392:2:200: NACP. WWI Questionnaire Collection, Army 23, 1918; Delano to Waring, November 30, 1918; Hamlen to Scott, December 73. Roberts to Stimson, February 3, Nurse Corps, US Army Heritage and 1922, CN: 392:2:200: NACP. Education Center Library (USAHEC), 2, 1918; Hamlen to Delano, December Carlisle, PA; Aileen Cole Stewart, The 2, 1918; Waring to Delano, December 8, 74. Staupers, No Time for Prejudice, 98–99; Fifty Year Graduates of Freedmen’s Hospital 1918; CN: 392:2:200: NACP. “Department of Nursing Efficiency School of Nursing Tell Their Story (Wash- 61. Bristow, American Pandemic, 132–133. Record,” Seymour Folder, RC Nurses, ington, DC: Freedmen’s Hospital Nurses RG200: NACP; Report of the Freedmen’s 62. “What Caused Big Mortality at Sher- Alumnae Clubs, 1986), 36. Hospital 1920, 40–41. man,” Daily Scioto Gazette, December 44. Report of the Freedmen’s Hospital to 4, 1918, 6; Annual Report of the Surgeon 75. Roberts to Stimson, February 3, the Secretary of the Interior for the Fiscal General, US Army to the Secretary of War 1922; Williamson, “A Brief History of Year Ended June 30, 1918 (Washington, 1919, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: GPO, the Colored Nurses Who Were Stationed DC: GPO, 1918), 34–38; 1920 Census, 1919), 531. at Camp Grant,” CN: 392:2:200: NACP.

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