The Ethel Johns Report: Black Women in the Nursing Profession, 1925

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Profile of a Leader: Unearthing Ethel Johns's "Buried" Commitment to Racial Equality, 1925

“…Johns's report remained in the Rockefeller Foundation archives until found in the 1980s by Darlene Clark Hine, later vice provost and associate professor of history at Purdue University in Indiana (Hine 1982a). Hine described Johns's report as a "formidable assemblage of information [and] a moving and illuminating portrait of a much neglected group of American professionals in general, and black women professionals in particular."…”

“…Her findings that black nursing students in the United States experienced exploitation by hospital training schools paralleled her own student experience at the Winnipeg General Hospital, and she publicly criticized such exploitation in Canada, too (Street 1973). Indeed, some of the experiences described by Johns were common to American and Canadian students of that era: students worked long hours (up to 68 hours per week), were given little formal instruction and were hired out to care for private patients with fees being paid to the hospital (Hine 1982a;McPherson 1996;Street 1973). However, the black nursing students in Johns's report faced additional hardships not experienced by their counterparts.…”

“…As she reported, "if the influence of race conflict could be eliminated from the situation the problem of the Negro nurse would not differ greatly from that of the relatively inferior type of white nurse, and a common solution might possibly be found for both" (Johns 1925: 6). Hine lamented the shelving of Johns's report; had the Rockefeller Foundation followed through, Hine contended, black nursing education would have improved much earlier than it did (Hine 1982a). As it was, the voices of those interviewed by Johns in 1925 remained unheard.…”

“…By 1920, the number of black schools for nurses had risen to just 36 ("The State of African Americans in Nursing Education" 1996). It seems that to be black, a woman, and a nurse in the mid-1920s guaranteed a spot on the low rung of the American social ladder (Hine 1982a). Johns concluded her report by stating:…”

Public Health Nursing for Southern Blacks in the Depression Era

“…From the start of their nursing education as 18 year-old black women training in hospital nursing programs, they were treated as second class citizens. 107 Yet they…”