Pioneers

Harriet Tubman

Though Harriet Tubman is best known for guiding slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad and for her civil rights efforts after the war, she also served during the war as a nurse, scout and spy for the Union. Soon after the war started in 1862, Tubman went with a group of Northern abolitionists to South Carolina, where she nursed black soldiers and hundreds of newly liberated slaves who flooded into Union camps during the war. When dysentery hit the camps, according to some accounts, Tubman treated her patients with a bitter brew of boiled roots and herbs based on folk remedies she had learned in her native Maryland.

Because Tubman could not read or write, much of her Civil War work was described by others in the form of commendations. “I have been acquainted with Harriet Tubman for nearly two years,” wrote Henry Durrant, the assistant surgeon in charge of the Union’s Contraband Hospital in Beaufort, S.C., in 1864. (“Contraband” was the Union’s word for escaped slaves.) “My position as medical officer in charge of contrabands in this town, and in hospitals, has given me frequent and ample opportunity to observe her general deportment, particularly her kindness and attention to the sick and suffering of her own race.”

Despite poor health, Tubman continued caring for wounded soldiers in the Washington, D.C., area and was appointed matron of the Colored Hospital at Fortress Monroe, Va.

For much of her military career, Tubman worked for little or no pay, and was denied a pension. Eventually, she received a pension for her husband’s war service and, after great outcry from supporters who were appalled a Civil War heroine had been left penniless, a nursing pension.

Mary Eliza Mahoney

(May 7, 1845 – January 4, 1926) was the first African American to study and work as a professionally trained nurse in the United States, graduating in 1879. Mahoney was one of the first African Americans to graduate from a nursing school, and she prospered in a predominantly white society. She also challenged discrimination against African Americans in nursing.

In 1908, Mahoney co-founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses(NACGN) with Adah B. Thoms. This organization attempted to uplift the standards and everyday lives of African-American registered nurses. The NACGN had a significant influence on eliminating racial discrimination in the registered nursing profession. In 1951, the NACGN merged with the American Nurses Association.

After gaining her nursing diploma, Mahoney worked for many years as a private care nurse, earning a distinguished reputation. She worked for predominantly white, wealthy families. Majority of her work with new mothers and newborns had been done in New Jersey, with the occasional travel to other states. During the early years of her employment, African American nurses were often treated as if they were household servants rather than professionals. Mahoney emphasized her preference to eating dinner alone in the kitchen, distancing herself from eating with the existing household help, to further dismiss the relation between the professions. Mahoney also lived alone in an apartment in Roxbury where she spent time reading and relaxing, while also attending church activities with her sister. Nevertheless, families who employed Mahoney praised her efficiency in her nursing profession. Mahoney's professionalism helped raise the status and standards of all nurses, especially minorities. Mahoney was known for her skills and preparedness. As Mahoney's reputation quickly spread, Mahoney received private-duty nursing requests from patients in states in the north and south east coast.

One of many goals that Mahoney had hoped of achieving, was to change the way patients and families thought of minority nurses. Mahoney wanted to abolish any discrimination in the nursing field. Being an African American, in a predominantly white society, she often received discrimination as an African American nurse. Mahoney didn't understand racial discrimination in a workforce such as Nursing. In Massachusetts particularly, it was difficult for African American nurses to find work following graduation due to the limitations of either working in African American homes or working in white homes that already have African American employees in household work. She believed that all people should have the opportunity to chase their dreams without racial discrimination. It is said that Fredrick Douglass, a prominent African American abolitionist and ex-slave of the time, was distantly related to Mahoney which became one of the influences on Mahoney's active participation against the repercussions of slavery and racial discrimination against minorities in the United States.

From 1911 to 1912, Mahoney served as director of the Howard Orphan Asylum for black children in Kings Park, Long Island, New York. The Howard Orphan Asylum served as a home for freed colored children and the colored elderly. This institution was run by African Americans. Here, Mary Eliza Mahoney finished her career, helping people and using her knowledge however she knew best.

In 1896, Mahoney became one of the original members of a predominantly white Nurses Associated Alumnae of the United States and Canada (NAAUSC), which later became the American Nurses Association(ANA). In the early 1900s, the NAAUSC didn't welcome African-American nurses into their association. In response, Mahoney founded a new, more welcoming nurse's association, with help of other founders, one being Martha Minerva Franklin. In 1908, she became co-founder of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN). This association didn't discriminate against anyone and aimed to support and congratulate the accomplishments of all outstanding nurses, and to eliminate racial discrimination in the nursing community. The association also strived to commemorate minority nurses on their accomplishments in the registered nursing field. In 1909, Mahoney spoke at the NACGN's first annual convention, which became the first time that Martha Minerva Franklin and Adah Belle Samuels Thoms met Mahoney in person. The NACGN struggled in their early stages with only 26 female nurses in attendance of their first national convention. In her speech, she recognized the inequalities in her nursing education, and in nursing education of the day. The NACGN members gave Mahoney a lifetime membership in the association and a position as the organization's chaplain

Mahoney has received many honors and awards for her pioneering work. She was inducted into the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame in 1976 and to the National Women's Hall of Famein 1993.

Goldie Brangman

Ms. Goldie Brangman, CRNA, MBA exceptional leader and pioneer in the Nurse Anesthesia profession. Ms. Brangman was the first and only African-American CRNA who assumed the position of President of the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists. When she became President in 1973, she had already worked her way up the AANA ladder by being the President of the New York Association of Nurse Anesthetists and AANA Board Member.

According to Ms. Brangamn in an interview for Minority Nurse Magazine, Following In Her Footsteps, Ms. Brangman states,"I was the first woman of color in a leadership position in the AANA, and as a result I had to run for every AANA office at least twice,” Before she assumed these positions, Ms. Brangman started her nursing career after graduating from Harlem Hospital Nursing Program in 1943.

Then, in 1951, she founded the Harlem School Center School of Anesthesia and was Program Director for 34 years. In 1958, while working as a Nurse Anesthetist at Harlem Hospital, she recounts delivering anesthesia to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from almost a fatal stabbing in New York City. During that time, there were no mechanical ventilation and paralysis. For anesthesia delivery for Dr. King's thoracic surgery, Ms. Brangman used a blended anesthetic of gas, oxygen and ether (GOE) by use of Hedbrink anesthesia machine (AANA Journal, December, 2015, Imagining In Time. Eleven years after she becoming the President of the AANA , she was the only CRNA of color to earn the AANA Helen Lamb Educator of the Year Award in 1983. Since then, no other CRNA of color have earned such award. In 2008, Ms. Brangman, retired in Hawaii and was a volunteer for the American Red Cross for over 25 years, attended as a guest speaker for the Diversity CRNA Information Session in New Jersey, She encouraged CRNAs, SRNAs, and RNs of color to be active within the AANA and state nurse anesthesia association and to pursue doctorates to become experts in nurse anesthesia.

Since that time, four CRNAs who were at that meeting became Presidents of their respective state nurse anesthesia associations and nine have gone onto earn their respective doctorates (PhDs, EdD, and DNPs).