DID YOU KNOW May 6 – 19, 2025

Aileen Cole Stewart (c.1893 – c.1997) passed her nursing exams in Maryland during the same year that the United States entered World War I. Though the army was in desperate need for nurses, it wasn’t until the1918 influenza epidemic that African American nurses were assigned to active duty. Stewart began her service in the Army Nurse Corps at Camp Sherman on December 1, 1918, where the African American nurses lived in segregated areas. They were only allowed to take care of German prisoners of war and African American soldiers.

Learn more about Aileen Cole Stewart and her remarkable story here.