The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis
February 11 • 2:00-4:00pm
The inspirational author of The Black Angels, Maria Smilios, will be at the National Lighthouse Museum to discuss another Staten Island, [as viewed through the] municipal hospital, Sea View Hospital (1913-1961), which was pivotal in controlling the tuberculosis (T.B.) epidemic in N.Y.C.
Maria recounts the story of the critical role of Southern, Black nurses in the managed care at Sea View Hospital for the incurable, patients with the wasting disease, tuberculosis (T.B.). Later, by the 1940’s, these “Black Angels” brought the cure of T.B. to the nation.
Editor’s Note: From the publisher’s book description: “New York City, 1929. A sanatorium, a deadly disease, and a dire nursing shortage.
“In the pre-antibiotic days when tuberculosis stirred people’s darkest fears, killing one in seven, white nurses at Sea View, New York’s largest municipal hospital, began quitting en masse.
“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 sanatorium, dubbed ‘the pest house,’ where it was said that ‘no one left alive.'”
Banner Image: Black Angels book cover. Image Credit – Penguin Random House
About The Author
The National Lighthouse Museum’s Board of Trustees, Advisors and FRIENDS are dedicated to the full development of the National Lighthouse Museum on the site of the US Light House Service General Depot on Staten Island from 1864 to 1939. Partnering with government agencies, non-profits, corporations, foundations, and other organizations, we will work to promote and support historical, educational, cultural, recreational, and other related activities at the site, while maintaining the navigational significance and maritime heritage of lighthouses throughout the world.
The Mission is in consonance with the Purposes of the National Lighthouse Museum as they are documented in Article II of the museum by-laws:
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