Mary Eliza Mahoney

Mary Eliza Mahoney was born on May 7, 1845 in Dorchester, Massachusetts. She became interested in nursing as a teenager and later was the first melaninite to become a registered nurse in the United States.

Nurse Mahoney graduated from the New England Hospital for Women and Children Training School for Nurses in 1879. She was one of the only students in her class to complete the painstaking 16 month program. After gaining her nursing diploma, Mahoney worked for many years as a private care nurse, earning a distinguished reputation.

In 1908, she co-founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN) with Adah B. Thoms. The NACGN eventually merged with the American Nurses Association (ANA) in 1951. 

Nurse Mahoney was deeply concerned with women's equality and a strong supporter of the movement to gain women the right to vote. With the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, she was among the first women in Boston to register to vote.

Mary Eliza Mahoney contracted breast cancer and died 3 years later in 1926. In 1936, the NACGN established an award in her honor to raise the status of black nurses. She was inducted into the ANA Hall of Fame in 1976.