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• 1 media/Phyllis Dailey swearing in.gif 2022-12-13T19:31:45+00:00 World War Two: The Fight to Integrate Military Nursing 34 image_header 2023-01-11T20:56:17+00:00 Above photo: Five new Navy nurses take the oath of service, March 8, 1945. Phyllis Mae Dailey, the Navy's first African American nurse, is second from the right.
  
  Beginning in the late 1930’s, the leaders of the NACGN focused on integrating the Army and Navy Nurse Corps. Historian Darlene Clark Hine has shown how Estelle Massey Riddle and Mabel Keaton Staupers turned the NACGN into a powerful political force with a large membership. The NACGN developed ties with other Black organizations, like the National Council of Negro Women, whose support would be important for their campaigns.
  
  At the beginning of WWII, the War Department announced that Black medical staff would only be enlisted to work on segregated Black wards, which would only be created if there were enough hospitalized Black soldiers to justify assembling segregated facilities. The Navy Nurse Corps refused to accept any Black nurses whatsoever. The War Department established a maximum quota of a maximum of 56 Black nurses, 120 doctors, and 44 dentists who could be enlisted in the Army. Government officials, following the doctrine of “separate but equal,” argued that segregation was not a form of racial discrimination. But Black leaders like Staupers understood that segregation almost always guaranteed unequal treatment, while also limiting Black staff’s possibilities for professional advancement. Staupers saw the quotas as a step forward from WWI, when Black nurses were completely excluded until after the war had ended. However, the quotas were a step forward in the fight for full integration.
  
  The Black nurses who were accepted into the Army Nurse Corps dealt with difficult conditions, because of both their race and gender. Black and white female nurses in the Army and Navy Nurse Corps faced discrimination: they were not allowed to be married and, despite technically being enlisted officers, they received less pay than male staff in equivalent positions or female nurses in civilian positions. But unlike white nurses, Black nurses were not allowed to treat white American soldiers (a change from WWI when Black nurses worked in racially integrated military camps). Some served Black soldiers on segregated bases. Some were assigned to care for German soldiers in prisoner-of-war (POW) camps, which Black nurses found humiliating, considering that these soldiers had fought for a Nazi white supremacist ideology. Many of the POW camps were in the Jim Crow South and Southwest, where Black nurses were excluded from socializing with white officers and faced segregation and discrimination when they went into nearby towns. In fact, the Black nurses found that often white officers or civilians were friendlier towards the German POW's than they were towards the Black nurses.1 Dorothy Margaret Jenkins, who served in the Army Nurse Corps at a POW camp in Papago Park, Arizona recalled that the German POW's sometimes used the officers' club, while African American nurses, despite being enlisted officers, were barred from doing so.
  
  Meanwhile, throughout the war, Staupers and her allies worked tirelessly to try to achieve full integration. She eventually built up enough political pressure to get a meeting in 1944 with Eleanor Roosevelt, the First Lady, who in turned tried to pressure the Secretary of War.
  
  The crucial turning point came in January 1945, when President Franklin Roosevelt announced his support for expanding the draft to include nurses, because the military was facing an extreme nursing shortage. This announcement drew an intense public backlash, in part because it went against accepted gender roles and in part because, thanks to Staupers’ organizing, the public knew that the military was refusing to enlist Black nurses. Staupers capitalized on this moment of public attention, rallying Black organizations, women’s groups, and white allies to protest.
  
  As historian Darlene Clark Hine described it:

  “The sheer hypocrisy of calling for a draft of nurses while excluding large numbers of black nurses willing to serve was too much for most Americans to swallow. Telegrams poured into the White House from the NAACP, the Catholic Interracial Council, the National Nursing Council for War Service, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the American Federation of Labor, the National YWCA Board, the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, the Philadelphia Fellowship Commission, the New York Citizens’ Committee of the Upper West Side, the National Council of Negro Women, the United Council of Church Women, and the American Civil Liberties Union.”

  
  This coordinated campaign convinced President Roosevelt and his advisors that white Americans were ready to support the full integration of Black nurses into the military. Just two weeks after President Roosevelt’s speech, War Department officials announced the end of racial quotas in the Army Nurse Corps and the lifting of any racial restrictions. Officials from the Navy Nurse Corps made a similar policy change five days later. This victory marked an important success for Black nurses in a long and frustrating battle. It was also an important part of the larger movement among Black Americans for equal rights in American society, which had begun to gain momentum during the 1930’s and 1940’s.2
  
  
  Yet history is not always a story of obvious, straightforward progress. Historian Charissa J. Threat writes that the NACGN, in their struggle acceptance for Black nurses in the military, focused on nursing as a female profession, asserting that Black women were just as qualified as white women to nurse. According to Threat, this strategy reinforced gendered ideas about nursing in which women were naturally qualified to provide patient care, while men who wanted to serve as nurses were contradicting their natural masculine roles. The NACGN did not choose to ally with male nurses and push for the removal of all racial and gender distinctions. Thus by the end of WWII, male nurses had still not gained entry into the Army Nurse Corps.3
  
  THE CADET NURSE CORPS
  Black nurses gained new opportunities during WWII not only because of their efforts to integrate the Army and Navy Nurse Corps but also because of the creation of the Cadet Nursing Corps.
  
  Frances Payne Bolton, a white congresswoman and supporter of the NACGN, introduced the Bolton Act of 1943, which created the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps, intended to train nurses as quickly as possible to meet wartime needs. According to the Act, if nursing students agreed to work in certain essential fields, the federal government would pay for their tuition and other expenses. NACGN activists rallied Black nurses across the country to pressure their representatives and senators to sign the antidiscrimination clause of the bill, which denied Bolton Act funding for any schools that discriminated against students based on gender, marital status, ethnicity, or race. This legislation created a paradigm shift in nursing, and was the first systemic shift toward integration within nursing education and training programs. 
  
  Funding from the act allowed Black nursing schools to significantly increase their enrollment and encouraged white schools to begin accepting Black students, thus beginning the slow process of the integration of nurse training programs. Additionally, many Black students who otherwise could not have afforded nursing school were able to enroll due to the funding from the Cadet Nursing program.4
  
  
   

   

  Bibliography
  Darlene Clark Hine, Black women in white: Racial conflict and cooperation in the nursing profession, 1890–1950. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989.
  
  Charissa J. Threat, "‘The Hands That Might Save Them’: Gender, Race and the Politics of Nursing in the United States during the Second World War," Gender & History 24 No.2 (August 2012), pp. 456–474.
• 1 2024-05-22T17:33:16+00:00 The NACGN & the Integration of Nursing (HS) 33 plain 2024-05-22T20:11:38+00:00 Lesson Title: The NACGN & the Integration of Nursing
  Subject(s): U.S. History, Ethnic Studies, African American History, Civics
  Grade: 9-12
  Keywords: racism, integration, segregation, WWII, prejudice, activism, Civil Rights Movement, healthcare justice, intersectionality
  Time: 1-2 45 minute class periods
  
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  IL Standards:
  • Perspectives: Identify the role of individuals, groups, and institutions in people’s struggle for safety, freedom, equality, and justice (SS.H.7.9-12).
  • Communicating Conclusions: Construct and evaluate explanations and arguments using multiple sources and relevant, verified information (SS.IS.6.9-12).
  • Developing Claims and Using Evidence: Identify evidence that draws information from multiple sources to revise or strengthen claims (SS.IS.5.9-12).

  Essential Questions (choose 1 and modify jigsaw questions accordingly):

  • What were the most important factors that led to the integration of nursing in the U.S.?
  • How have Black nurses made gains towards equality in U.S. society? 
  • How does justice advance in society?
  • How do people react to injustice? Is there a best way to react to injustice?
  • Does racial equality depend on government action?

  Learning Objectives (choose 1 and modify jigsaw questions accordingly)

  • SWBAT compose an argument about why all-white nursing institutions (schools, hospitals) started accepting Black nurses, using evidence from 2 primary sources.
  • SWBAT make an argument about what strategies Black nurses used to react to injustice and make gains towards equality, using evidence from 2 primary sources.
  • SWBAT make an argument about how justice advances in society within the context of the post-WWII era, using evidence from 2 primary sources.
  • SWBAT make a claim about whether racial equality depends on government action using evidence from 2 primary sources.

  Introduction:

  In this lesson, students will explore the history of the racial integration of nursing schools jobs and analyze various primary sources in order to develop their own argument about why integration of nursing happened in the years after World War Two. Students will learn about a lesser-known civil rights organization: the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN) and read sources that NACGN leaders wrote about this history. 

  This lesson provides students with an opportunity to engage with questions about the most effective forms of social justice activism as well as the limits and strengths of primary sources.

  This lesson can be a standalone lesson that would fit within units about the Civil Rights Movement, World War Two, healthcare justice, and the intersections of race and gender. 

  Within the Teaching Care sequence, this lesson comes after a lesson about Black nursing schools that were founded in response to racism and segregation. 
  
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  Historical Context (for teachers): (modified from Mapping Care)

  When the nursing profession emerged after the Civil War, its leaders and institutions reflected the ideology that Black people were inferior. Black nurses were usually limited to treating Black patients in segregated hospitals or wards. In the early 1900’s, white nurse  leaders pushed for state laws that required nurse licensing and registration. Many southern states forced Black nurses to take different licensing exams or refused to license them altogether, shutting them out of most job opportunities. And when Black nurses could find work, they were usually paid less than white nurses for the same duties.

  Black nurses would not accept this situation quietly. In 1908, Martha Minerva Franklin, a Black nurse leader, helped to organize the creation of the National Association for Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN). The NACGN tackled many injustices, fighting discriminatory licensing laws, working to improve the quality of Black nursing schools, and operating a registry to help Black nurses find work. The NACGN also partnered with groups like the National Urban League, the NAACP, and the National Council of Negro Women on campaigns for Black voting rights and against Jim Crow segregation laws.

  Among the NACGN’s greatest victories was the passage of the 1943 Bolton Act and the 1945 integration of military nursing under the leadership of Mabel Staupers and Estelle Massey Riddle Osborne. The leaders of the NACGN decided to dissolve the organization in 1951 and merge with the American Association of Nursing. 

  Note for teachers regarding historical language: many of these primary sources, written by both Black and white authors, use the term “Negro.” It is important for teachers to provide students with a content warning and with historical context for this term. In the period when these authors were writing, many Black people considered “Negro” to be a term of respect, as compared to “colored.” It had very different connotations than the n-word, which white people used as a slur. In the 1960’s civil rights activists pushed for a shift from “Negro,” to “Black,” making it no longer socially acceptable for non-Black people to use the term “Negro.” In later decades, some Black activists pushed for use of the term “African American.” 

  For more resources on this subject, see:

  “A Note on Historical Language: 'Negro,' 'Colored,' 'Black,' and 'African American'” from African American Poetry (1870-1928): A Digital Anthology, by Amardeep Singh.

  When Did the Word Negro Become Socially Unacceptable?, Jim Crow Museum website.
  
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  Activity Plan:

  1) Introductory activity: look at images recruiting nurses during WWII, discuss: what is the idealized image of what a nurse looks like? What qualities does she have? 
  
  2) Individual Source Analysis: students divide up and each examine one primary source sheet:
  a. With the Primary Source analysis worksheet OR b. By choosing quotes that stood out to them
  
  3) Group jigsaw:
  a. Students come together with other students who examined the same primary source to compare their analysis and answers, notice similarities and differences.
  b. Students come together in groups of 4 to share what they learned with each other and complete the jigsaw graphic organizer together.

  [Alternative]: Save the Last Word for Me: Students share meaningful quotations they chose from the primary source and discuss with a group 

  4) Students answer the final question on the graphic organizer independently, making a claim in response to the essential question and providing evidence from the provided primary sources. 

  Assessments 

  • Primary source analysis worksheets
  • Jigsaw graphic organizer
  • Save the Last Word for Me discussion protocol 

   

  Introductory Activity
  

  Show students this image and explain that this was a recruiting poster that the government created to try to recruit more nurses to serve in the military during WWII.
  
  Ask them: based on this image, what is the government’s idealized image of what a nurse looks like? What qualities does she have? 
  
  If teaching standalone lesson: Explain that today students will be examining the question of racism in U.S. institutions through the lens of nursing. This will provide a different point of view that is often not as studied about how Black activists and their allies fought for justice during the Civil Rights era.
  
  If teaching within Teaching Care sequence: Explain that in previous lessons students studied one reaction to racism and injustice within the healthcare system, in which Black leaders created institutions to educate and hire Black nurses and care for the Black community. In this lesson, students will examine a different approach that some Black leaders and their supporters took: fighting for the integration of nursing schools. 
  
  Emphasize that by the end of this lesson, students will be trying to answer one of these essential questions (choose before teaching):
  • Why did all-white nursing schools and healthcare institutions begin to accept Black nurses? 
  • How have Black nurses made gains towards equality in U.S. society? 
  • How does justice advance in society?
  Summarize the history of the NACGN based on provided historical context. 
  Teachers can pull up this image of an early NACGN convention from Mapping Care or pull up the Mapping Care timeline, so students can understand the broader context of the NACGN’s founding in relation to the post-WWII events studied in this lesson.  
  
  Ask students: Why is the NACGN not well-known today compared to organizations like the NAACP or the Urban League? 
  
  Extension opportunity: discuss the following quote from historian Darlene Clark Hine, who wrote the foremost book on the history of Black nurses:

  “There are many reasons for our society’s disregard of nurses. First, and perhaps foremost, nursing is the most female of all professions…Thus, it is daunting to see beyond nurses’ femaleness, to move beyond the ingrained tendency to devalue the labor performed by women, and to develop an appreciation for the special skill they bring to their work. Second, we seldom encounter nurses as professionals until we are devastated by disease and incapacity. However, once health is regained nurses are quickly, perhaps gratefully, forgotten.”

   

  Jigsaw

  Divide students into groups of 4. In each group, 1 student will examine 1 of the 5 provided primary sources and answer questions on the primary analysis worksheets, before the group comes together to complete the jigsaw graphic organizer. 

  Difficulty of sources (relative to each other, in terms of vocabulary & concept complexity): 
  Source #1: moderate
  Source #2: difficult
  Source #3: moderate
  Source #4: easy
  Source#5: difficult (only secondary source)
  
  Save the Last Word for Me