Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

Maxine Haynes, Nurse Broke Color Barrier In Seattle, 85

0 views
Skip to first unread message

DGH

unread,
Mar 24, 2004, 4:33:29 PM3/24/04
to
.

Maxine Haynes, a nurse who brought down the color barrier in Seattle's
[Washington] hospital nursing ranks, died Sunday, March 21, 2004, at
her home in Seattle, the cause of death not being reported, at the age
of 85.

Born Maxine Pitter to one of the city's early black families, she
enrolled at the University of Washington in 1936 when there were fewer
than two dozen black students on campus, but was denied admission to
the nursing school because of dormitory segregation. She earned a
degree in sociology in 1941.

She was eventually admitted to a nursing school in New York City, New
york. After completing her studies, she worked at Bellevue Psychiatric
Hospital in New York.

She returned to Seattle in 1945 and applied for a nursing job at
Providence Hospital and was hired, becoming the first African American
nurse hired by the hospital. The hospital, now called Swedish Medical
Center, established a nursing scholarship in her honor.

She lived in Los Angeles, California, in the 1950s, working at what
was then County Hospital and earning a master's degree in nursing from
UCLA. She taught at Mount St. Mary's College in Los Angeles before
returning to Seattle in the late 1960s and was later appointed
assistant professor of nursing at the University of Washington — the
same school that decades earlier had refused her bid to become a
nurse.

0 new messages