{"id":64028,"date":"2022-10-21T19:57:23","date_gmt":"2022-10-21T19:57:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=64028"},"modified":"2022-10-21T19:57:24","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T19:57:24","slug":"florence-nightingales-rival-gets-the-last-laugh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=64028","title":{"rendered":"Florence Nightingale\u2019s Rival Gets the Last Laugh"},"content":{"rendered":"

Florence Nightingale\u2019s Rival Gets the Last Laugh<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2022-09-07<\/p>\n

Linda Villarosa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
Mary Seacole\u2019s<\/a> work on the Crimean front<\/a> made her a legend in her own time. Credit…Pictorial Press Ltd \/ Alamy Stock Photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Florence Nightingale\u2019s<\/a> Rival Gets the Last Laugh<\/em><\/p>\n

IN SEARCH OF MARY SEACOLE: The Making of a Black Cultural Icon and Humanitarian<\/em><\/a>, by Helen Rappaport<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the 1970s, a group of Jamaican nurses traveled to England<\/a> to visit the newly relocated grave site of a swashbuckling nurse who had been born in a small town 80 miles west of Kingston<\/a>, and had worked as a healer and humanitarian during the Crimean War<\/a>. At the pinnacle of her fame, \u201cMother Seacole,\u201d as she was known, was compared to Florence Nightingale<\/a>, widely considered the founder of modern nursing. But the nurses found her grave in disrepair, \u201cits white marble headstone \u2018dimmed with mildew and dirt.\u2019\u201d To honor their heroine, the group \u2014 along with the British Commonwealth Nurses War Memorial Fund \u2014 created an exact replica, replete with blue and gold lettering, palm trees carved in stone and a flag invoking her service to the crown.<\/p>\n

Thus began the renaissance of Mary Seacole<\/a>. In 1984, a small feminist press republished her best-selling 1857 memoir, \u201cWonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands<\/a>.\u201d In 2004, Seacole was voted the \u201cGreatest Black Briton\u201d in an online poll. In 2016, a statue was erected in her honor on the grounds of St. Thomas\u2019s Hospital<\/a>. An experimental play, \u201cMarys Seacole\u201d \u2014 written by the Pulitzer winner Jackie Sibblies Drury<\/a> \u2014 ran in New York and this year opened in London<\/a>. Gugu Mbatha-Raw<\/a> will star in an upcoming big-screen biopic…<\/p>\n

Read the entire review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florence Nightingale\u2019s Rival Gets the Last Laugh<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,5,21],"tags":[29808,81,24259,7473,33677,80,33676,14953,3692,10071,2327],"class_list":["post-64028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-book-reviews","category-latincarib","tag-crimean-war","tag-england","tag-florence-nightingale","tag-helen-rappaport","tag-jackie-sibblies-drury","tag-jamaica","tag-linda-villarosa","tag-mary-jane-seacole","tag-mary-seacole","tag-new-york-time","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64028"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64030,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64028\/revisions\/64030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}