Mary Seacole: The Most Famous Black Woman of the Victorian Age
During the Victorian era, when women faced enormous social constraints, and black women even more so, Mary Seacole, a native of Jamaica, used her nursing skills, entrepreneurial instincts, and wanderlust to travel from the Caribbean Islands to Panama to Europe. Drawing on Seacole's autobiography, newspaper accounts, and "assorted ephemera," historian Robinson presents a portrait of an extraordinary woman who sought adventure and a means of proving her usefulness. Skilled in the natural healing arts, Seacole ministered to the ailing during the cholera and yellow fever epidemics in the Panama region. She eventually took her skills and eye for business opportunities to the Crimean battlefields. About the same time that Florence Nightingale was gaining a reputation, Seacole was nursing the wounded and operating a renowned restaurant and hotel. A woman of mixed racial heritage, she was the childless widow of Horatio Nelson's godson. ContemporSary black readers may not appreciate Seacole's racial sensibilities, but she was undoubtedly an admirable figure.Vanessa BushCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved