The Black Angels
Trade Paperback
The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis, as seen on BBC Two Between the Covers
Black Angels tells the true story of 300 black nurses who changed the course of history, beginning in 1929 when white nurses staged a walk out at Staten Island's 2000-bed TB sanatorium, threatening New York with a public health catastrophe. City health officials made a radical decision to sanction a national call for 'colored nurses'. Lured by the promise of good pay, education, housing and most of all, a rare opportunity to work in a hospital free of quotas and segregated wards, 'Black Angels' from all over the country boarded trains and buses to enter wards that held both hope and danger. Their triumphant story, bringing together medicine, politics, racial strife, women's rights and cutting-edge science, has up until now been almost completely ignored. Maria Smilios has been working with one of the Black Angels - Virginia Allen, now aged 84 - as well as ex-patients whom the Angels cared for.
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- ISBN: 9780349009261
- Author: Maria Smilios
- Pub date: 10.10.23
- RRP: $39.99
- Format: Paperback / softback
Author
Maria Smilios
A New York City native, Maria Smilios has a Masters of Arts from Boston University in Religion & Literature. Smilios was a science-book editor when she discovered the Black Angels and was invited to tell this little-known story by one of the surviving nurses. Maria currently lives in Asheville, North Carolina. This is her first book.
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