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The Black Angels the untold story of the nurses who helped cure tuberculosis

"During those dark pre-antibiotic days, when tuberculosis killed one in seven people, white nurses at Sea View, New York's largest municipal hospital, began quitting. Desperate to avert a public health crisis, city officials summoned Black southern nurses, luring them with promises of good pay, a ca...

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Main Author: Smilios, Maria (Author)
Format: Books Print Book
Language:English
Published: New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons, [2023]
Subjects:
African American nurses > New York (State) > New York > Biography.
Nurses > New York (State) > New York > Biography.
Tuberculosis > Patients > New York (State) > New York.
Epidemics > New York (State) > Biography.
Racism in medicine > New York (State) > New York > History > 20th century.
African Americans.
Nursing.
Tuberculosis.
Biographies.
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Summary:"During those dark pre-antibiotic days, when tuberculosis killed one in seven people, white nurses at Sea View, New York's largest municipal hospital, began quitting. Desperate to avert a public health crisis, city officials summoned Black southern nurses, luring them with promises of good pay, a career, and an escape from the strictures of Jim Crow. But after arriving, they found themselves on an isolated hilltop in the remote borough of Staten Island, yet again confronting racism and consigned to a woefully understaffed facility, dubbed "the pest house" where "no one left alive." Spanning the Great Depression and moving through World War II and beyond, this story follows the intrepid young women, the "Black Angels," who, for twenty years, risked their lives working under dreadful conditions while caring for the city's poorest--1,800 souls languishing in wards, waiting to die or become "guinea pigs" for experimental (often deadly) drugs. Yet despite their major role in desegregating the NYC hospital system--and regardless of their vital work in helping to find the cure for tuberculosis at Sea View-these nurses were completely erased from history. The Black Angels recovers the voices of these extraordinary women and puts them at the center of this riveting story celebrating their legacy and spirit of survival"--
Physical Description:xx, 428 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:9780593544921
0593544927
Author Notes:Maria Smilios learned about the Black Angels while working as a science book editor at Springer Publishing. As a native New Yorker and lover of history, medicine, and women's narratives, she became determined to tell their story. In addition to interviewing historians, archivists, and medical professionals, she spent years immersed in the lives and stories of those close to these extraordinary women. Maria holds a master of arts in religion and literature from Boston University, where she was a Luce scholar and taught in the religion and writing program. In her free time, she enjoys reading, hiking, and hanging out with her tween daughter and their rescue dog, Buddy. The Black Angels is her first book.

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