As the home of the nation’s first hospital and medical school, Philadelphia is considered the “cradle of American medicine.”<\/p>\n
Yet the achievements of a group of local Black women in the nursing field don’t get nearly the same amount of attention.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, a group of researchers is hoping to make those nurses’ stories more widely heard.<\/p>\n
Spread across a large table inside\u00a0Penn Nursing’s Barbara Bates Center<\/a>, Margo Brooks Carthon, PhD, RN, FAAN, and Hafeeza Anchrum, PhD, RN, spent one morning browsing some of the center’s massive archive of photos that document life at the\u00a0Mercy-Douglass Hospital School of Nursing<\/a>, Philadelphia’s first training school for Black nurses.<\/p>\n “They were challenging racist ideas about who Black people were,” Anchrum said.<\/p>\n Anchrum, a postdoctoral fellow, interviewed former Mercy-Douglass nurses as part of her doctoral research.<\/p>\n “Ms. Geraldine Hatcher, she was so proud to be a Mercy-Douglass nurse,” Anchrum recalled. “She said, ‘I would have my head up high, you know, just strutting, you know, I was a Mercy-Douglass nurse.'”<\/p>\n “I loved our uniforms,” Hatcher said in a recording provided by Anchrum. “It was something to be really proud.”<\/p>\n Mercy-Douglass opened in 1948 following the merger of two Black-owned hospitals: Fredrick Douglass Hospital, which was founded in 1895, and Mercy Hospital.<\/p>\n In the racist era of Jim Crow segregation, Mercy-Douglass provided healing and hope to Philadelphia’s Black communities.<\/p>\n “These were women who faced tremendous odds,” Brooks Carthon said. “And they were able to overcome and persist.”<\/p>\n Mercy-Douglass’ academic culture traces back to its predecessors, where school administrators held students to a high standard by grading their knowledge of anatomy and operating room technique, as well as more subjective areas, like obedience and neatness.<\/p>\n Despite the strict environment, there was time for students to relax and participate in activities, like joining Mercy-Douglass’ basketball team.<\/p>\n Brooks Carthon said nursing proved to be second nature for Black womanhood.<\/p>\n “They were really called upon from the very inception to provide care and nurturing to society,” Brooks Carthon said.<\/p>\n In 1973, Mercy-Douglass shut down after years of financial struggles.<\/p>\n A community health clinic was built in its place at Woodland Avenue and South 50th Street.<\/p>\n As Raenette Fields waited for the bus to arrive, she fondly remembered her childhood spent sneaking into Mercy-Douglass and running around its hallways.<\/p>\n “The nurses probably remembered me because I was terrorizing the neighborhood coming up, but now, I’m sweet. I’m a nice woman,” Fields said. “It was the best hospital at that time.”<\/p>\n Besides leaving an indelible impact on residents like Fields, Anchrum said Mercy-Douglass’ nurses blazed a path for women like herself.<\/p>\n Before researching the history of Mercy-Douglass, Anchrum worked as a nurse in New York City.<\/p>\n “As a nurse, and as a Black woman nurse,” Anchrum said, “It’s given me a greater sense, I think, of identity.”<\/p>\n The Bates Center welcomes visitors to view their Mercy-Douglass archives. Those interested can click here for more information<\/a>.<\/p>\n