The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis
Maria SmiliosIn 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, & 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 & consigned to a woefully understaffed sanatorium, dubbed “the pest house,” where it was said that “no one left alive.”
Spanning the Great Depression & moving through World War II & beyond, this remarkable true story follows the intrepid young women known by their patients as the “Black Angels.” For twenty years, they risked their lives working under appalling conditions while caring for New York’s poorest residents, who languished in wards, waiting to die, or became guinea pigs for experimental surgeries & often deadly drugs. But despite their major role in desegregating the New York City hospital system—and 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 & puts them at the center of this riveting story, celebrating their legacy & spirit of survival.
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Maria Smilios learned about the Black Angels while working as a science book editor at Springer Publishing. As a native New Yorker & lover of history, medicine, & women’s narratives, she became determined to tell their story. In addition to interviewing historians, archivists, & medical professionals, she spent years immersed in the lives & stories of those close to these extraordinary women.