Ann Bradford Stokes

Ann Bradford Stokes (1830-1903) was an American nurse. A former slave, Stokes eventually volunteered in the United States Navy as a nurse on the USS Red Rover in 1863. She is the first American woman to receive a military pension for her own services and was one of the first African American women to serve as a nurse in the Navy.

Biography

Stokes was born in 1830 into slavery as Ann Bradford in Rutherford County, Tennessee.[1] In January of 1863, she had escaped slavery and was taken aboard a Union ship.[1] That same month, she volunteered to work as a nurse on the United States Navy hospital ship USS Red Rover where she assisted Sisters of the Holy Cross.[1][2] Stokes was assigned the rank of "first class boy" and was paid for her work.[3] Stokes worked until October 1864 when she resigned due to exhaustion.[1]

She married Gilbert Stokes, who had also worked on the Red Rover and they moved to Illinois.[1] After Gilbert died in 1866, Stokes remarried in 1867 to George Bowman.[1] She applied for a military pension first based her marriages in the 1880s, but was turned down.[1] Later, after learning to read and write, she applied again for a pension based on her own military service and she was granted a pension of $12 a month in 1890.[1] Not only was Stokes one of the first African American women to serve as a nurse in the US. Navy, but she was also the first American woman to receive a pension for her own service in the military.[4]

Stokes lived in Belknap, Illinois until she died in 1903.[1]

References
  1. Slawson, Robert (2011-01-27). "Ann Bradford Stokes (1830-1903)". Black Past. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  2. Arlene W., Keeling (2018). "The Roots of a Profession, 1830-1865". In Keeling, Arlene W.; Hehman, Michelle C.; Kirchegessner, John C. (eds.). History of Professional Nursing in the United States: Toward a Culture of Health. New York: Springer Publishing Company. p. 36. ISBN 978-0-8261-3313-7.
  3. "Ann Bradford Stokes: From Slavery to Civil War Naval Nurse". Maria Smilios. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
  4. Slawson, Robert (2011-01-04). "African Americans in Medicine in the Civil War Era". Black Past. Retrieved 2020-05-09.
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