Jessie Sleet Scales
The first Black public health nurse
Jessie Sleet Scales was born in Ontario, Canada in 1865. Her birthplace is significant as Ontario was often considered an endpoint of the Underground Railroad. She is a graduate of Chicago’s Provident School of Nursing class of 1895 and set out to begin her career with hopes of working in the public health field. After being denied multiple opportunities because of her race, she was hired by the New York City Charity Organization Society in 1900 where the tuberculosis committee determined she could serve its Black tuberculosis patient population.
She is credited for ensuring Black patients with chronic conditions received culturally competent care and she set the foundation for other Black nurses working in the community and public health. It is because of Jessie Sleet Scales that other nurses struggling to find public health opportunities were recommended and selected for hire. Her contributions and achievements were recognized by her superiors and her work was published in the American Journal of Nursing.
Sources
We sourced information for the above biography from Seven Black Nurses Who Changed History Forever, National Library of Medicine, and the book The Paths We Tread: Blacks in Nursing Worldwide 1854–1994 by M. Elizabeth Carnegie.
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Know Your History
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- Breaking Bias in Healthcare, an online course created by scientist Anu Gupta, to learn how bias is related to our brain’s neurobiology and can be mitigated with mindfulness.
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- National Coalition for Ethnic Minority Nurse Association to stay engaged with topics relevant to nurses of color.
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