Estelle Massey Osborne Biography

The person who I was assigned for my black history month paper was Estelle Massey Osborne. She was born on May 3, 1901 in Palestine, Texas. She was one of eleven brothers and sisters. At first, Estelle went to school for teaching. She studied at Prairie View State College for her teaching degree. After two years of schooling, she received her certificate and began teaching at a public-school. Osborne’s lifelong dream of being a teacher was short lived, due to an act of violence that almost ended her life. Since her teaching career did not work out, her brother suggested to try the medical field. This resulted in her beginning to train at City Hospital No. 2 in St. Louis. After a few months of training, she began the head nurse. Soon after, Osborne’s luck turned around and she managed to receive the Julius Rosenwald Fund scholarship, which made her the first black nurse to obtain that scholarship.

Some of them were at the New York University’s teaching facility, in the American Nurses association, on the staff of a national nursing society, and the part of the Coordinating Committee on Negro Nursing for the National Council of War Service. She soon realized that combining her old and new career would help young black students everywhere, so she began teaching again. Osborne taught at Central Nursing School for Lincoln Junior College in Kansas City, Harlem Lincoln Schools, Freedman’s Hospital in Washington D.C., and then became the Associate professor of Nursing Education at the University of Maryland. Leaving lasting legacies could be called Osborne’s specialty. She succeeded in having a scholarship named after her, which allows registered black nurses to apply if they want to study in nursing for a master’s degree full time. She even helped lift the color ban from nursing in the U.S. Army. This helped increase the status of nursing by black woman in World War