Women and Children (now the Dimock Community Health Center) in 1878 at the age of thirty-three, alongside thirty-nine other students. Her sister, Ellen Mahoney, attended the same nursing program for a time but was unsuccessful in receiving her degree. The criteria the hospital used in the student selection process emphasized that the forty candidates would be "well and strong, between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one, and have a good reputation as to character and disposition". Out of a class of forty, Mahoney and two white women were the only students to complete the program and receive their degree. It is presumed that the administration accepted Mahoney, despite not meeting the age criteria, because of her connections to the hospital through prior work as a cook, maid, and washerwoman there when she was eighteen. Mahoney worked nearly sixteen hours daily for the fifteen years that she worked as a hospital laborer. Mahoney's training required that she spend at least one year in the hospital's various wards to gain universal nursing knowledge. The intensive program consisted of long days with a 5:30 A.M. to 9:30 P.M. shift, which required Mahoney to attend lectures and lessons to educate herself through instruction of doctors in the ward. These lectures consisted of nursing in families, physiological subjects, food for the sick, surgical nursing, child-bed nursing, disinfectants, and general nursing. Outside of the lectures, students were taught bedside procedures, such as taking vital signs and bandaging. In addition, Mahoney worked for several months as a private-duty nurse. The nursing program allowed students to earn a weekly wage, ranging from 1 to 4 dollars, after their first two weeks of work. For many of the nurses these wages were insufficient, as many of them were struggling financially and giving back 25 % of their wages for financial assistance to the hospital. Three quarters of the program consisted of the nurses working within a surgical, maternity or medical ward with six patients they were responsible caring for. The last two months of the extensive 16-month long program required the nurses to use their newfound knowledge and skills in environments they were not accustomed to; such as hospitals or private family homes. After completing these requirements, Mahoney graduated in 1879 as a registered nurse alongside 3 other colleagues — the first Black woman to do so in the United States. Career After receiving her nursing diploma, Mahoney worked