Bolton with African-American
nursing troop. The Payne Fund.
Breaking the Race and Gender Line
Bolton with African-American
nursing troop. The Payne Fund.
| One of the social gains made by the
Cadet Nurse Corps during World War II was that for the first time African-American nurses
were actively recruited into the profession. Equality with the nursing ranks was an
issue close to the heart of Frances Payne Bolton. She was among the few to demand
that African-American nurses be a part of the newly commissioned nursing groups. She
even went to a hospital in England in 1944 to help one of these groups deal with the
discrimination they continued to face in Armed Forces. The first African-American women graduated in the early 1950s from the Bolton School. Betty Smith Williams was the first African-American to earn a Master of Nursing degree from the School in 1954. While her application was initially rejected, she fought hard to change the exclusionary policies. In 1971, Williams went on to found the National Association of Black Nurses, and Cleveland became the first city to have a local chapter. In a sense, breaking the color line at the school also eased admissions for male students. A reporter characterized Russell L. Swansburg, the school's first male graduate, as the "sole trousered member in the sweetly starched and scented nursing class." In crossing the gender line, Swansburg faced a number of academic and social dilemmas. He declined to wear a cap and "sidestepped girlish teas of the nursing alumnae." He was unceremoniously excused from a "physical measurement test" in the Mather gym that involved photographing students "in silhouette, wearing tights." Swansburg went on to a distinguished career in nursing at Sheppard Air Force Base. He is currently Professor of Nursing Administration at the Medical College of Georgia. His publications include one of the leading texts in nursing administration, Management and Leadership for Nurse Managers (1990). Page 14 |
