Lost Women of Science Conversations: The Black Angels

Lost Women of Science

In the first of a new series we’re calling Lost Women of Science Conversations—and a fitting choice for Black History Month—we talk to Maria Smilios, author of a new book that tells the story of Black nurses who were lured from the Jim Crow South to work at a tuberculosis (TB) hospital called Sea View on Staten Island, N.Y. Facing unsanitary conditions and racial prejudice, these “Black Angels” cared for TB patients for decades before a cure that they helped develop was found. It’s a story of bravery and dedication that Smilios pieced together from oral histories and medical records because there were no archives that described these nurses’ work.