Editing Nella Larsen (section)

==Nursing career==
In 1914, Larsen enrolled in the [[Lincoln School for Nurses|nursing school]] at New York City's [[Lincoln Hospital (Bronx)|Lincoln Hospital and Nursing Home]]. The institution was founded in the 19th century in [[Manhattan]] as a nursing home to serve black people, but the hospital elements had grown in importance. The total operation had been relocated to a newly constructed campus in the [[South Bronx]]. At the time, the hospital patients were primarily white; the nursing home patients were primarily black; the doctors were white males; and the nurses and nursing students were black females.<ref name="Hutchinson 2006 pp.19-20" />{{Rp|page=6}} As Pinckney writes: "No matter what situation Larsen found herself in, racial irony of one kind or another invariably wrapped itself around her."<ref name="Pinckney"/>

Upon graduating in 1915, Larsen went South to work at the [[Tuskegee Institute]] in [[Tuskegee, Alabama]], where she soon became head nurse at its [[John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital]] and training school.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers|last=Williams|first=Yolanda|pages=351–352}}</ref> While at Tuskegee, she was introduced to [[Booker T. Washington]]'s model of education and became disillusioned with it. As it was combined with poor working conditions for nurses at Tuskegee, Larsen decided to leave after a year or so.<ref>{{cite thesis |last=Stephens |first=Bria Stephens |date=2017 |title=Nella Larsen: An Untold Story of Race through Literature |url=https://egrove.olemiss.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1139&context=hon_thesis |page=16 |publisher=[[Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College]] |access-date=8 November 2024}}</ref>

She returned to New York in 1916, where she worked for two years as a nurse at Lincoln Hospital. After earning the second-highest score on a civil service exam, Larsen was hired by the city Bureau of Public Health as a nurse. She worked for them in the Bronx through the [[Spanish flu|1918 flu pandemic]], in "mostly white neighborhoods" and with white colleagues. Afterwards she continued with the city as a nurse.<ref name="Hutchinson 2006 pp.19-20" />{{Rp|page=7}}