Mabel K. Staupers

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Mabel Keaton Staupers
Born
Mabel Elouise Doyle

(1890-02-27)February 27, 1890
Barbados
DiedSeptember 30, 1989(1989-09-30) (aged 99)
Washington, DC, United States
Alma materFreedmen's Hospital School of Nursing
Known forNursing administration at Booker T. Washington Sanatorium, advancing the status of African American nurses
Spouses
James Max Keaton
​
​
(m. 1917, divorced)​
Fritz C. Staubers
​
​
(m. 1931; died 1949)​
AwardsSpingarn Medal 1951
American Nurses Association Hall of Fame 1996
Scientific career
FieldsNursing

Mabel Keaton Staupers (February 27, 1890 – September 30, 1989) was a pioneer in the American nursing profession. Faced with racial discrimination after graduating from nursing school, Staupers became an advocate for racial equality in the nursing profession.[1]

Biography

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Staupers was born February 27, 1890, in Barbados, West Indies.[2] In 1903, at the age of thirteen, she emigrated to the United States, Harlem, New York, with her parents, Pauline and Thomas Doyle and received American citizenship in 1917. She attended Freedmen's Hospital School of Nursing in Washington, DC, where she graduated with honors. After graduation, like most graduate nurses, she worked as a private duty nurse.[2]

During World War II Staupers fought for the inclusion of black nurses in the Army and Navy as the executive secretary of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (NACGN). She wrote that "Negro nurses recognize that service to their country is a responsibility of citizenship."[3] Staupers became the executive secretary of NACGN, and the main goal of the association was to advance the status of African American nurses, most of whom were barred from nursing schools and professional associations in a number of states.[4] Staupers, along with the president of NACGN, Estelle Masse Riddle, led the struggle of black nurses to win full integration into the American nursing profession. Staupers was a great organizer and an astute political tactician whose focus was social change.

The major social change led by Staupers and what she is known for today is playing a crucial role in the desegregation of the military's nursing corps during World War II.[4] She continued fighting for the full inclusion of nurses of all races in the US military, which was granted in January 1945 because at the time the military had a strict 56 black nurse quota to enter the service and it enforced segregated practices for those who were already in the service. Outraged by this, Staupers attacked the hypocrisy of Surgeon General Norman T. Kirk's plan to draft white women as nurses instead of qualified black nurses to meet the shortage of nurses in the military. In 1945, the US Army opened its Armed Forces Nurses Corps to all applicants regardless of race. In 1948, the American Nursing Association followed suit and allowed African-American nurses to become members after Staupers dissolved the NAGCN because she believed the organization had completed its mission. In 1951, the NAACP honored Staupers with the Spingarn Medal in recognition of her efforts on behalf of black women workers.[5]

During World War II, Staupers assembled support and fought to end the use of quotas on number of black nurses in the military.[6]

While working as a private nurse in Washington and New York, Staupers helped establish the Booker T. Washington Sanatorium.[6] It was the first and one of the few[vague] in-patient centers founded to care for African Americans with tuberculosis,[6] at a time when other hospitals refused black medical experts privileges or staffing positions.[6] Staupers was superintendent for the Booker T. Washington Sanatorium from 1920 to 1922.[6] She used her influence and management skills and became executive secretary of the Harlem Committee of the New York Tuberculosis and Health Association,[6] a position she held for twelve years. In December 1935, Staupers attended a gathering of African American women leaders, organized by Mary McLeod Bethune to establish the National Council of Negro Women.[6]

Staupers died on September 30, 1989, aged 99.[7]

References

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  1. ^ Carnegie, Mary Elizabeth (1991). The Path We Tread: Blacks in Nursing, 1854–1990. National League of Nursing Press. p. 95.
  2. ^ a b Hine, Darlene Clark (1994). "Staupers, Mabel Keaton (1890–1989)". Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 1106–1108. ISBN 0-253-32774-1.
  3. ^ Hine, Darlene Clark (1989). Black Women in White: Nursing Conflict and Cooperation in the Nursing Profession, 1890 to 1950. Indiana University Press. p. 174.
  4. ^ a b "Staupers, Mabel (1890–1989)". Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Retrieved January 31, 2020 – via Encyclopedia.com.
  5. ^ Biondi, Martha (2009). To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-0674010604.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Hine, D. C.; Hine, C. W.; Harrold, S. (2011). The African-American Odyssey (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson. OCLC 642684242.[pages needed]
  7. ^ "Mabel Staupers, 99, Leader for Nurses, Dies". New York Times. October 6, 1989. p. B24. ProQuest 110232233.
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Library resources about
African American Nurses