Linda Richards (1841-1930) pioneered professional nurses’ training at Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1873 she had received the first diploma from the country’s first professional nursing school which was organized at the New England Hospital for Women and Children. The hospital, founded in what is today’s theater district in 1862 and run by Dr. Marie Zakrzewska (1829-1902) and a board of women and men reformers, moved to Roxbury in 1872 and is now the Dimock Center. Mary Eliza Mahoney (1845-1926), the first African American woman to become a registered nurse, also graduated from the New England Hospital for Women and Children. Mahoney is honored by a medal awarded annually by the American Nurses Association. The Palmer-Davis Library at Massachusetts General is named for Sophia Palmer (1853-1920) and Mary E. P. Davis (1840-1924), both students of Linda Richards. Palmer and Davis co-founded the American Journal of Nursing and created the American Nurses Association by bringing together alumnae associations of nurses’ training schools.
