As a result, hospitals were left with minimal nursing staff to meet the demand that would arise in 1918 during the flu epidemic. Despite the increased recruitment, black nurses were refused entry into the Army and Navy nurse corps. While there were no criteria that specifically banned black nurses, the requirement that nurses had to have completed their training at a hospital with more than 50 beds all but eliminated African American nurses, most of whom had graduated from small segregated hospital training schools. Applicants to the Armed Forces Nurse Corps (managed by the American Red Cross) had to be between 25 and 35 years of age, unmarried, and graduates of hospital training schools with more than 50 beds.
Public Domain.Īfter the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, the American Red Cross expanded their recruitment campaign in an effort to meet the demand for military nurses that World War I required. African American nurses at Camp Sherman, 1919.
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