Honoring Mary Eliza Mahoney America's first professionally trained Black nurse.

Honoring Mary Eliza Mahoney, America’s first professionally trained Black nurse. Whereas Mary Eliza Mahoney was born May 7, 1845, in Dorchester, Massachusetts, to Charles Mahoney and Mary Jane Seward Mahoney-freed, formerly enslaved persons who had moved to Boston from North Carolina; Whereas Mary Eliza Mahoney, at the age of 33, was accepted as a student nurse at the hospital-based program of nursing at the New England Hospital for Women and Children; Whereas Mary Eliza Mahoney was 1 of 4 students, of a class of 42, who completed nursing at the New England Hospital for Women and Children in 1879; Whereas Mary Eliza Mahoney devoted her time and efforts unselfishly to the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses and was installed as the Official Chaplin; Whereas Mary Eliza Mahoney’s motto was, Work more and better the coming year than the previous year. Whereas Mary Eliza Mahoney delivered the first annual keynote speech of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses and established the Mary Eliza Award, which today continues as the Mary Eliza Mahoney Award bestowed biennially by the American Nurses Association; Whereas Mary Eliza Mahoney supported the suffrage movement and was the first Black professionally trained nurse to receive retirement benefits from a fund left by a Boston physician to care for 60 nurses, who received 25 dollars every 3 months as long as they lived; Whereas Mary Eliza Mahoney served as the director of the Howard Orphanage Asylum for Black children in Kings Park, Long Island, in New York City from 1911 until 1912; Whereas Mary Eliza Mahoney died on January 4, 1926, at the age of 80, after 3 years of battling breast cancer; Whereas Mary Eliza Mahoney’s gravesite is in Woodlawn Cemetery, Everett, Massachusetts, and the headstone on her grave states, The First Professional Negro Nurse in the U.S.A. Whereas Mary Eliza Mahoney was inducted into the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame in 1976; Whereas Mary Eliza Mahoney advanced the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice and confronting issues affecting professional nurses, such as the shortage of nurses; Whereas the COVID–19 pandemic worsened working conditions for nurses, and Forbes estimated in 2022 that 47 percent of health care workers left or are considering leaving the profession; Whereas, today only 6.3 percent of the registered nurse workforce identify as Black out of the 4,300,000 registered nurses in the country, despite research proving Black nurses are critical for providing Black communities better health care; and Whereas nursing is a critical investment to the delivery of high-quality, cost-effective patient care, and the Nation should invest in and value nursing care: Now, therefore, be it That Congress— (1) honors Mary Eliza Mahoney, the first Black nurse, for an outstanding nursing career, dedication to the United States nursing profession, and exemplary contributions to local and national professional nursing organizations; (2) recognizes Mary Eliza Mahoney as the first professionally trained Black nurse, and honors other Black nurses who practice nursing with distinction; (3) honors and supports the goals and activities of National Nurses Week; (4) promotes further understanding and public awareness of the history of American nurses, particularly Black nurses, who practiced nursing with compassion and devotion and transmitted new scientific knowledge using science-based nursing practice; and (5) advocates for Black, Latina, and other women of color to enter nursing and supports strategies to retain and bring back nurses who are considering leaving or have left the nursing profession.

Summary: This concurrent resolution honors Mary Eliza Mahoney, the first professionally trained Black nurse in the United States, for her contributions to the nursing profession. It also supports the goals and activities of National Nurses Week.