The year: 1929. Thousands were dying of a horrible disease. White nurses, fearful of tuberculosis and weary of the toll of caring for its victims, were quitting, leading to a labor shortage. For Black nurses from the South, this was an unprecedented opportunity to gain education and a career. Hundreds traded in the Jim Crow South for work at an integrated Staten Island tuberculosis hospital.
This is the story that Maria Smilios tells in her 2023 book, The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis. The book tells the true story of the Black nurses who helped find the cure for tuberculosis at Sea View Hospital in New York. The women who answered the call escaped the segregation and lack of training and employment opportunities for nurses in the South. Their story inspired us to look into the history of Black nurses in Asheville during the early 1900s.
According to the HeardTell blog post Occupations of Black Women in Asheville, 1890 Part IV: Nurses written by former Buncombe County Special Collections Manager Zoe Rhine and former Friends of the North Carolina Room Board Chair Louise Maret, “when we hear the word ‘nurse’ today, we think of a skilled health care professional, working most often in a medical facility such as a hospital. But in 1890, the term ‘nurse’ had multiple meanings. It could be ‘…equally applied to those caring for the sick, to women who provided postpartum care (who might be midwives), and to those looking after children.’”[1]
It wasn’t until 1918 that nurses started appearing in the city directory as “tr nurse” or “pract nurse,” meaning they were formally trained as medical professionals either from an accredited nursing school or a nursing program. Those who passed the Board of Nursing examination, which was started in 1903, would receive their certifications and become registered or trained nurses. However, Black nurses were not allowed to take the exam until 1915.
Hospitals and Nursing Schools
In the early 20th century North Carolina had “over 100 nursing schools for white students…only 13 were open to African Americans.”[2] It is important to note that some of these schools did not open until the 1950s and 1960s, meaning Black women wanting to obtain nursing training prior to that time only had a select number of options in the state. If any women from Western North Carolina wanted to attend a school in the state prior to 1922, when Blue Ridge Hospital School of Nursing opened, they would have to go to St. Agnes in Raleigh, Lincoln Hospital in Durham, Good Samaritan Hospital in Charlotte, Jubilee Hospital in Henderson (Vance County), or Community Hospital in Wilmington. In contrast, there were at least three white nursing schools, at Mission, Biltmore and Highland Hospitals, in Asheville between 1900 and 1922.
This resulted in many Black nursing students attending schools in other states, as local Black doctors and teachers were already doing. With women forced to leave Western North Carolina to attend school and with minimal job opportunities awaiting them, there was not much incentive to return to Asheville to start a career. Stephens-Lee alum Geneva Collins Hunt (1907-1994), for instance, left Asheville to attend nursing school at St. Agnes in Raleigh. That education led to a distinguished career which included working as the superintendent at L. Richardson Hospital in Greensboro for 14 years, serving a first lieutenant in the Army Nurses Corps, and serving as president of the NC Black Nurses Association.[3]
Another challenge facing these women was that often Black nursing schools in the state were not accredited, which limited their employment opportunities and ability to take the State Board Nursing exam. In most cases rural Black hospitals did not have the means to establish an accredited nursing school, as they were typically smaller and not as well-funded as their white counterparts, relying on community donations for supplies and support.
In her book African American and Cherokee Nurses in Appalachia: A History, 1900-1965 retired nurse and author Phoebe Ann Pollitt explains that “segregation laws prohibited African Americans from being admitted to the same wards as white patients and from attending public and private white schools of nursing. As a result, African Americans, occasionally with white allies, built hospitals and founded schools of nursing in every Appalachian community with a significant African American population.”[4] Asheville was one of those communities, but of the Black hospitals that existed in Asheville between 1900-1951—Torrence Hospital, Circle Terrace Sanatorium, Blue Ridge Hospital, Shuford Colored Clinic, and Asheville Colored Hospital—only Blue Ridge Hospital (1922-1930) was able to establish a nursing school.
Torrence Hospital (1911-1915)
Dr. William Green Torrence (1881-1915) came to Asheville in the early 1900s and started a practice at 16 Eagle Street. In 1911 he opened a clinic to treat patients in his home at 95 Hill Street while also maintaining an office at 29 Eagle Street. The hospital closed when Dr. Torrence died of tuberculosis in 1915.
Dr. Torrence was a well-respected physician and community member who served as vice-president for the YMI for several years. His funeral was held at Mt. Zion Baptist Church where ”the crowd present [was] so large that the church would not hold all the people.”[5]
Circle Terrace Sanatorium (1914-1917)
Dr. John W. Walker (1872-1932), a tuberculosis specialist, operated the Circle Terrace Sanatorium from 1914-1917. Dr. Walker, one of the namesakes of Lee Walker Heights and the brother of educator Hester Walker Lee, opened one of the only sanatoriums in the South dedicated to the treatment of Black tuberculosis patients.
The hospital, located at 44 Circle Street, was managed by Mrs. Carrie Robinson, an experienced nurse. While there are no other listings in the city directories of any other nurses working at the sanatorium, it stands to reason that Dr. Walker employed at least a small nursing staff. After Circle Terrace Sanatorium closed, Dr. Walker helped open Blue Ridge Hospital in 1922 and served as an attending physician until it closed in 1930.
Blue Ridge Hospital (1922-1930)
In 1922 Blue Ridge Hospital and nursing school opened its doors. This meant that local Black women finally had access to an accredited nursing school that would not require them to leave the county or state to obtain their education. The hospital also provided potential jobs for the graduating nurses, who otherwise would have had limited employment options in Asheville as they were not allowed to work in any of the white hospitals in the area—even the ones that accepted Black patients. The attending physicians were prominent local Black doctors, including Chief of Staff Dr. Reuben H. Bryant, Dr. John W. Walker, Surgeon-in-Chief Dr. Lee Otus Miller, and Dr. Louis N. Gallego. In addition to serving the hospital, these doctors maintained separate offices in the YMI and Wilson Buildings on Eagle and Market streets.
Blue Ridge Hospital, located at 18 Clingman Avenue, served as the only Black hospital in Western North Carolina from 1922 until it closed in 1930 due to financial struggles. According to Dr. Miller, the hospital’s demise was due to the “failure of the city and county commissioners to support the hospital and the ‘apparent lack of interest’ on the part of negro leaders of Asheville.”[6]
Shuford Colored Clinic (1941-1943)
In 1941 Dr. Mary Frances Shuford was asked stop seeing Black patients in her Haywood Building office. In response, she established the Shuford Colored Clinic at 269 College Street in the house previously owned by Dr. John W. Walker. Local physicians often helped with surgeries and specialized cases, and Dr. Shuford employed both Black and white nurses at the clinic, including Carrie Robinson, who had managed the Circle Terrace Sanatorium. In its first year “the clinic reported 2,100 outpatient visits, including 200 surgical operations. Shuford’s health insurance plan paid 85% of the expenses. Charitable donations covered the deficit.”[7]
It became apparent that larger facilities were needed. With the assistance of Dr. Paul Ringer and other community leaders, Shuford was able to raise funds to move the clinic to a new location, which would become the Asheville Colored Hospital.
Asheville Colored Hospital (1943-1951)
The Asheville Colored Hospital, located at 185 Biltmore Avenue, opened its doors in October 1943. The initial plan for the hospital included a training school for Black nurses, although it appears that this never came to fruition.
At the time the hospital opened there were five white hospitals in Asheville, only one of which would accept Black patients; however, none of them would allow Black doctors or nurses to practice there. Dr. Shuford’s clinic only had 12 beds for patients, with the opening of the new hospital, that number would increase to between 30 to 35 beds, almost tripling the capacity to tend to the Black community.
The house had formerly belonged to doctor Reuben H. Bryant and was purchased, remodeled, and supplied through funds raised from a community campaign. The executive board consisted of members of both races, among them were Black physicians and hospital staff members Dr. E. B. Thompson, Dr. J. W. Holt, who served as Vice-President of the board, and Dr. L. O. Miller.
Upon its opening in 1943, the hospital employed eight Black nurses and nurse’s aides who were under the direction of white superintendent Edna Miller. By the fall of 1944, the entire nursing staff, including the superintendent and head nurses, were all Black women. In addition to the trained nurses and nurse’s aides, the hospital also had assistance from high school students earning school credit and learning skills for a future career in nursing.
In 1946, the nurses of the Asheville Colored Hospital were provided with a home at 211 Asheland Avenue. Furnishings for the house were donated by community members and provided the nurses with a respite from their daily duties.
The nurses pictured are superintendent and Allen High School alum Mattie Bynum and nurses V. Fowler, Myrtle Wright, F.E. Gordon, and superintendent of nurses Inez Bethel.[8]
The hospital closed in 1951 when it merged with Memorial Mission Hospital. The patients were transferred to the Victoria Wing of Mission Hospital, which served as the Black ward for patients until federally mandated integration occurred in 1964.[9]
The Nurses
Maggie McAdams Greenlee
1922 was an eventful year for Black nurses in Asheville. In addition to the opening of the nursing school at Blue Ridge Hospital, the May 26 edition of the Asheville Times ran a short article announcing that a Black nurse had been added to the staff of the Asheville Public Health Nursing staff. This nurse was to work with the Black schools and families in the community. The salary of $45 per month was being paid by the Black parent-teacher association and F.L. Seely.
Margaret (Maggie) McAdams Greenlee (1900-1957), a graduate of the MacVicar Nursing School in Atlanta, received her nursing certification in 1923. In addition to her duties in the schools, she also taught home defense nursing and served as the President of the Asheville Chapter of the North Carolina State Association of Negro Registered Nurses, Inc. in 1947. By 1951, after almost 30 years, Maggie was still the only Black nurse on staff for the City of Asheville Health Department. [10]
Three years after it opened its doors, the first graduating class from Blue Ridge Hospital’s nursing school included Flossie Metz, Lula Long, and Mary Kathleen Wills. Their commencement ceremony was held in the auditorium at the YMI building with the address being delivered by Dr. Reverend Ashley Chappell of Central Methodist Church. That same year, all three women would pass the North Carolina Board of Examinations in Greensboro earning their certifications and becoming registered nurses.
During its operations the role of Nursing Superintendent at Blue Ridge Hospital would change six times and include both Flossie Metz and Lula Long.
While there is not much information available about many of the nurses that worked at Blue Ridge Hospital, a few went on to have prominent careers in the nursing field.
Mattie Sampson Sears
One of these women was Mattie Sampson Sears (1899-1977), who served the Asheville community for the length of her career. Mattie was born in South Carolina and graduated from Dixie Hospital Nursing School in Virginia in 1925. She became the nursing superintendent at Blue Ridge Hospital in 1927. After the hospital closed, she was employed as a nurse for the Asheville city schools, where she played a prominent role in running nursery schools for Black children. She served as Vice President for the local chapter of the North Carolina Association of Negro Nurses, Inc. in 1947 and in 1956 she served as the Basileus of the local Lambda chapter of Chi Eta Phi, the sorority for Professional Black nurses. Mattie taught home nursing to the community and became the night supervisor at the Asheville Colored Hospital in 1950 and the Assistant Nurses Supervisor at the WNC Sanitarium in 1952.
Ruby Woodbury Scarlett Hilton
In 1928 Ruby Woodbury (1895-1992) became the superintendent at Blue Ridge Hospital. Ruby was a graduate of McClennan Hospital and Training School in Charleston, South Carolina and did post-graduate work at Harlem Hospital and New York University, where she studied hospital administration and ward management. After her time in Asheville, Ruby moved to Greensboro and became a leading figure in nursing in North Carolina. In 1931 she was the Superintendent of Nurses at L. Richardson Memorial Hospital and was elected as the President of the Greensboro Negro Nurses Association and as the first Vice President of the National Association of Negro Graduate Nurses. In 1935 she became the President of the State Association of Nurses.[11]
U.S. Veteran’s Hospital at Oteen
In 1942 the U.S. Veterans Hospital in Oteen, which specialized in tuberculosis treatment, brought in nine Black nurses from the Tuskegee Veterans Hospital to care for Black patients. The nurses were Head Nurse Elsie V. Davis, Carrie Flake Walker, Magnolia Woolridge, Harriet Brooks, Hanna Wallace, Paulina McDowell, Emily Ford, Carrie R. Smith and Annie Barber.[12]
The hospital stated that the nurses were added to relieve the white nurses of the care of the 162 Black patients and in anticipation of an increase of new patients. According to a past exhibit at the Western Regional Archives, which is currently located in the same building that served as the dormitory for the Black nurses, ”only five veterans’ hospitals hired black nurses prior to the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, making Oteen a unique situation.”
Additional nurses moved to Oteen in the following years and The Southern News reported in 1944 that ten more Black nurses were added to the staff bringing the total to twenty-five.[13] By 1945, the same year that Black nurses in Veterans Hospital were reclassified from subprofessional to professional status, that number had dropped to just fifteen.
Then in 1946, the nurses were asked to leave and relocate to one of the four other facilities that employed Black nurses. In May 1946, newspapers across the country picked up an article out of Washington, D.C., with the Los Angeles Tribune headline reading “Negro nurses lacking; whites to care for tubercular vets.” The article stated that Dr. Paul Rawley, hospital director, had expressed the need for fifteen more Black nurses in a letter to Colored Graduate Nurses executive secretary Mrs. Mabel Staupers. If Rawley could not fill that need, the nurses currently employed at the hospital would have to leave and he “would have to bring on a white staff because the 14 on duty were occupying housing quarters for 40 persons and…he could not move white nurses in with colored ones.”
Mrs. Anna Paino Glenn, president of the Colored Graduate Nurses Washington Chapter may have provided a reason for why Dr. Rawley was struggling to find Black nurses when she explained in the article that “the young graduate nurse, aware of the discrimination she must face in the south, hesitates to accept a position in a southern hospital. It is unfortunate that the federal government places this penalty on colored nurses.”[14] In November 1947, fifteen Black nurses were once again assigned to the staff at the U.S. Veterans hospital in Oteen.
Associations and Organizations
National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN)
The National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses was formed in 1908 in New York and was spearheaded by Martha Franklin of Philadelphia. One of its core purposes was “…to promote the professional and educational advancement of nurses in every proper way; to elevate the standards of nursing education: to establish and maintain a code of ethics among nurses…” [15] It was through the efforts of the NACGN, along with Black leaders and organizations, that in 1941 Black nurses were finally allowed to aid the war effort and serve in the U.S. Army Nurses Corps.
North Carolina Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NCACGN)/North Carolina Association of Negro Registered Nurses, Inc. (NCANRNI)
The North Carolina State Nurses Association was formed in 1902, but only admitted white nurses. In 1921, five nurses from North Carolina attended the NACGN conference in Washington, D.C. Upon returning home they formed the North Carolina Association of Colored Graduate Nurses and held their first meeting in 1923. Fayetteville nurse Carrie Early Broadfoot, leader of the effort to establish the North Carolina chapter, was elected President.
In 1931 the NCACGN changed its name to the North Carolina Association of Negro Nurses, Inc. Buncombe County hosted the 25th anniversary convention of the state association at Allen High School in June 1947. Among those presiding over the event were local chapter President and Vice-President Maggie Greenlee and Mattie Sears, and Superintendent of the Asheville Colored Hospital, Mattie Bynum. The association merged with the NC State Nurse Association in 1949.
Chi Eta Phi
Chi Eta Phi, the sorority for Professional Black nurses, was founded in 1932 by Aliene C. Ewell and eleven other nurses at the Freedman’s Hospital in Washington, DC. Their goal was to elevate the plane of nursing and increase interest in the field of nursing.[16] The sorority also provided scholarships to Black students wishing to pursue a career in nursing.
In 1955 The Asheville Citizen reported that Annie Ruth Bugg of Stephens Lee High School was the recipient of one of the Chi Eta Phi nursing scholarships. The local Lambda chapter was formed in 1951 with ten members who were employed as nurses in various institutions in the county.
Inaugural members included Asheville Public Health Nurse Maggie Greenlee and Blue Ridge Hospital Alumni Mattie Sears. In 1956, the chapter, led by Mattie Sears, hosted the annual Chi Eta Phi meeting at Allen High School. The theme that year was ”United, We Meet the Challenge.”
To learn more about Black nurses, doctors and hospitals in Asheville and Western North Carolina, visit us in the Buncombe County Special Collections reading room, or visit your local library to check out these books:
African American and Cherokee Nurses in Appalachia: A History 1900-1965 by Phoebe Ann Pollitt
African American Hospitals in North Carolina: 39 Institutional Histories 1880-1967 by Phoebe Ann Pollitt
The History of Medicine in Asheville by Freeman Irby Stephens, M.D.
Post by Kathy Hill, Librarian, Buncombe County Special Collections
[1] Zoe Rhine and Louise Maret, “Occupations of Black Women in Asheville, 1890 Part IV: Nurses,” HeardTell, Buncombe County Special Collections, March 8, 2022, https://specialcollections.buncombecounty.org/2022/03/08/occupations-of-black-women-in-asheville-1890-part-iv-nurses/.
[2] “African American Nursing Schools in North Carolina,” Tar Heel Nurse (Spring 2017), https://nursinghistory.appstate.edu/sites/default/files/aa-nursing-schools-nc-timeline.pdf.
[3] “Geneva Collins Hunt,” Asheville Citizen-Times. July 01, 1994, 14, https://www.newspapers.com/article/asheville-citizen-times-obituary-for-col/142938916/.
[4] Phoebe Ann Pollitt, African American and Cherokee Nurses in Appalachia (Jefferson, NC: MacFarland & Company, Inc., 2016), 23-24.
[5] “Funeral of Dr. Torrence Was Held Yesterday,” Asheville Gazette News, May 26, 1915, 7, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-asheville-times/142946218/.
[6] “Funds Lacking, Negro Hospital Here is Closed,” Asheville Times, August 09, 1930, 2, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-asheville-times-funds-lacking-blue/142882874/.
[7] Stephens Freeman Irby, The History of Medicine in Asheville (Asheville North Carolina: Grateful Steps, 2013), 406.
[8] “New Home for Nurses of Colored Hospital,” Asheville Citizen-Times, September 29, 1946, 23, https://www.newspapers.com/article/asheville-citizen-times-nurses-home-1946/140049679/.
[9] Irby, The History of Medicine in Asheville, 444.
[10] ”Pre-Natal Care Facilities to be Discussed,” Asheville Citizen, August 08, 1951, 16, https://www.newspapers.com/article/asheville-citizen-times-maggie-greenlee/142885473/.
[11] “Press Release of the death of Mrs. Hilton: Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center Rutland Rd. & E. 49th St., Brooklyn, N. Y. 11203,” Heritage of Black Highlanders Collection, UNC Asheville Ramsey Library, http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findingaids/mss/blackhigh/biography/hilton_%20ruby.html.
[12] “Nine Nurses Assigned to Oteen, N.C. Hospital,” New Pittsburgh Courier, December 05, 1942, 11, https://www.newspapers.com/article/new-pittsburgh-courier-oteen-nine-nurse/46528679/.
[13] “Ten Nurses Added at Oteen Hospital,” The Southern News (Asheville, NC), March 18, 1944, 1, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-southern-news-black-nurses-at-oteen/142803544/.
[14] “Negro nurses lacking; whites to care for tubercular vets,” Los Angeles Tribune, May 4, 1946, 17, https://www.newspapers.com/article/los-angeles-tribune-la-tribune-oteen-nu/142810563/.
[15] ”North Carolina Association of Colored Graduate Nurses/ Negro Registered Nurses, Inc.,“ North Carolina Nursing History, Appalachian State University, https://nursinghistory.appstate.edu/biographies/ncacgn.
[16] ”About: Chi Eta Phi,” Chi Eta Phi Sorority, Inc., https://chietaphi.org/about-chi-eta-phi/.