Estelle Massey Osborne
First Black nurse to receive a Master’s degree
Born in 1901, Estelle Massey Osborne received her bachelor’s and subsequently a master’s from Columbia Teachers College in 1931. She was the first Black nurse to obtain a master’s degree; the first Black instructor at the Harlem Hospital School of Nursing; the first Black superintendent of nurses and director of the nursing school at Homer G. Phillips Hospital in St. Louis; and became the first Black assistant professor at New York University in 1946. These accomplishments are even more remarkable against the historical context of her career: Of 1,300 nursing schools, only 14 were open to Black applicants and Black nurses were not accepted as members to the American Nurses Association (ANA), nor permitted to enlist with the US Army or Navy.
As president of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN), Osborne’s tireless mission was to improve integration of the nursing profession. Through her lobbying for integration, she herself went on to become the first Black member of the ANA Board of Directors, served as an ANA delegate to the International Council of Nurses, and later served as the assistant director of the National League for Nursing. Even more impactful, Osborne is also credited with ensuring Black nurses were not excluded from the 1943 Bolton Act to address the national nursing shortage and, with Eleanor Roosevelt as her ally, influenced the US Navy and Army to accept Black nurses in 1945. Her efforts and devotion are largely understood to have been pivotal in opening multiple doors to Black nurses that had previously been closed for decades and ushered in transformative opportunities for Black nurses throughout the profession.
Sources
We sourced information for the above biography from NYU College of Nursing, New York Public Library Archives, and the American Nurse Association Hall of Fame.
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