In the 1930s, when artist Bernard Zakheim was painting a series of murals at UCSF titled “The History of Medicine in California,” he included Biddy Mason, a healer, nurse, and midwife, as one of the historically significant figures.
Mason was born into slavery in 1818 in Hancock County, Georgia, and in 1851, she and her children were forced to walk to California from Utah. In California, slavery was prohibited, and state laws allowed enslaved people to be freed if they entered the territory. She sued for her freedom, winning it in 1856, at which point she chose the surname Mason.
Mason had deep medical knowledge from being a nurse, an expert herbalist, and a midwife. She delivered hundreds of children and helped the residents of Los Angeles during the smallpox epidemic of 1863 with herbal remedies—risking her health to help others. Mason’s contributions as a midwife are part of a long tradition of women serving as the primary caregivers within their communities.
Mason also worked as a nurse for a notable white surgeon, John Strother Griffin, the first university-trained physician in Los Angeles. They are depicted working side-by-side in Zakheim’s mural. At a time when segregation was still prevalent, it’s remarkable that she is represented as an equal to Griffin.
Using her earnings and savings to buy land, Mason became one of the city’s prominent philanthropists, opening schools, feeding people experiencing poverty, and donating to charities. She also continued to serve as a medical practitioner at a time when healthcare was not easily accessible, especially for Black people in the western United States.
“If you hold your hand closed, nothing good can come in,” Mason was known to say. “The open hand is blessed, for it gives in abundance, even as it receives.”
The historic murals that included Mason were located inside UCSF’s Toland Hall at Parnassus Heights, a building that was deemed seismically vulnerable and scheduled for demolition. In 2021, UCSF hired a team to document the murals for virtual viewing on the web, with descriptive audio sharing the history (get a virtual tour here). A separate team of welders, engineers, architects, and preservationists worked to safely remove, secure, and store the panels for future re-installation.
“We continue to store and monitor the murals while we look for a new location on campus or a partner to display them,” says Alicia Murasaki, Assistant Vice Chancellor of Campus Planning and Campus Architect. “While they are currently out of sight, they are not out of mind.”
Though much of Biddy Mason’s medical work occurred in a time before the formal recognition of midwives and nurses as medical professionals, she demonstrated that healing is not just about institutional knowledge but about compassion, community engagement, and advocating for those who are most in need. Mason’s legacy reminds us to help and care for the most vulnerable and challenges us to consider how women, particularly women of color, have shaped and continue to shape the medical field despite systemic barriers.
