Lincoln School for Nurses facts for kids

The Lincoln School for Nurses was a very important nursing school in New York City. It was special because it was the first school of its kind for African-American women in the city. It was also known by other names like Lincoln Hospital School of Nursing. The school taught nurses for many years, from 1898 until 1961. It was started by Lincoln Hospital, which was first called 'The Home for the Colored Aged'. The hospital and the nursing school later moved to a new location in Mott Haven, the South Bronx. This new location was on 141st Street, between Concord Avenue and Southern Boulevard.

History of the Lincoln School for Nurses

The Lincoln School for Nurses was the first and only nursing school for African-American women in New York City for a long time. Another school, the Harlem Hospital School of Nursing, opened in 1923. The first group of nurses graduated from the Lincoln School in 1900. There were six graduates in that first class.

From 1906 to 1923, Adah Belle Thoms was the acting director of the school. She had graduated from the school in 1905. In 1908, Adah Belle Thoms, along with Martha Minerva Franklin and Mary Eliza Mahoney, helped start an important group. This group was called the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses. The Lincoln School for Nurses Alumnae Association helped support their first meeting.

Around 1914, the hospital and nursing school had a mix of people. Most of the hospital patients were white. However, most of the nursing home patients were black. The doctors were white men, and the nurses and nursing students were black women.

In 1928, Isabel Maitland Stewart led a special study about nursing. This study was unique because it looked at how nurses cared for patients. It also checked if patients were comfortable and safe.

Notable Nurses Who Attended Lincoln School

Florence Edmonds

Nella Larsen

Many important nurses and other professionals attended the Lincoln School for Nurses. Here are some of them:

• Ianthe Blyden attended the school in 1946.
• Mary Elizabeth Carnegie studied here from 1932 to 1936. She later became the president of the American Academy of Nursing.
• Phyllis Mae Dailey was the first African American woman to join the United States Navy.
• Florence Edmonds attended the school between 1917 and 1919.
• Martha Minerva Franklin took a special post-graduate course in 1928.
• Florence S. Gaynor graduated in 1946. She became an executive director at Sydenham Hospital and a director at Meharry Medical College.
• Millie Essie Gibson Hale founded her own hospital, the Millie E. Hale Hospital, in Nashville, Tennessee.
• Lillian Holland Harvey graduated in 1939. She became the Dean of the Tuskegee Institute Training School of Nurses.
• Nella Larsen graduated in 1915. She was a novelist, a nurse, and a librarian. She was also part of the Harlem Renaissance, a time of great artistic and cultural growth for African Americans.
• Nancy Leftenant-Colon was the first black woman allowed to join the desegregated US Army Nurse Corps in 1945.
• Hulda Margaret Lyttle attended the school from 1913 to 1914. She later became the Dean of Meharry Medical College's School of Nursing.
• Adah Belle Thoms graduated in 1905. She was the acting director of the school from 1906 to 1923.
• Helen Turner Watson graduated in 1939. She became a professor of nursing at the University of Connecticut.

See also

• Estelle Massey Osborne an instructor at the school.
• Harlem Hospital School of Nursing established 1923. The second New York City nursing school to accept African-American women.
• List of defunct colleges and universities in New York
• National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses established 1908. Dissolved in 1951.