Ever Heard of Mary Seacole?

Mary Seacole

Yesterday, the hospital celebrated Florence Nightingale. For most of us, Florence’s name rings a bell as she is attributed with founding nursing as a profession and the creator of the pie chart. A Victorian heroine, she set up and ran a hospital in Scutari during the Crimean War, organized an association of nurses, and made strides in improving hospital care. Celebrated for leaving her life of luxury and working in the trenches with the soldiers, Nightingale is often a symbol of unconditional empathy and care for those she served.

While I am a long ways from being a historian, I do know that the 1800’s was victim to horrible race relations. It was a time in Europe that while black citizens may have been free, they had few civic rights. Meanwhile in the US, the North and South were at war with slavery being a key tenant of the struggle. Just last week, I finished a novel by Lois Leveene, The Secrets’ of Mary Bowser, which is a fictional narrative about the historically true heroine, Mary Bowser. Leveene pulls deeply from historical records to piece together what may have been reflective of the life of Mary Bowser, a woman that began her life as a slave, was educated, set free, and later became a spy pretending to be a servant for the Confederate President as she fed information back to Lincoln’s administration. So how is all of this connected?

With Mary Bowser in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but wonder, was Florence really alone in the founding of nursing as a profession? Turns out, while Florence should be applauded for the good she did, she too continues to collect the fame that arguably should be attributed to Mary Seacole, a black woman that nursed patients alongside Florence Nigtingale in the Crimean War but was forgotten until only 20 years ago.

Mary Seacole, similar to Florence Nightingale, had no professional training but was equipped with healing knowledge because of her Jamaican mother. After the War Office denied her request to help nurse the dying soldiers, Mary Seacole sold all of her belongings to pay for an independent trip towards the front lines where she too nursed the soldiers on the battlefield and set up a hospital. In short, Mary’s career rivals that of Florence Nightingale’s despite the tremendous adversity Mary faced as a mixed race woman. After the war, Mary returned to England in ill health and destitute. During this time, she published her memoirs, “The WonderfulAdventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands” (a free downloadable book on amazon!) which is attributed to being one of the first autobiographies written by a black woman of mixed race.

Perhaps my history textbooks had a missing chapter, but I think it is safe to assume that the majority of us have yet to learn about Mary Seacole, or as she was lovingly referred to, Mother Seacole. Perhaps it is easy to say that Mother Seacole flew under the radar because of the time period she lived within, that if it was today she would be given the credit she was due. But more difficult is the sobering truth that even today, despite the efforts of historians and sociologists to revive her name, Mary Seacole and others like her are forgotten in celebration and conversation.

It is hard to not draw comparisons between the two women. Despite both of their efforts towards social justice and health, it doesn’t take an academic to understand that while Florence did leave a home of luxury for the front lines, Mary Seacole left a life of hardship with the courage to change the world despite her social position and what could be more heroic or courageous than that? For me, Mary Seacole’s life story is an inspiration to continue to work towards the good no matter your position but also, that the voices of minority men and women have yet to be given the credit they deserve in both the past and the present. I believe that by sharing the stories of heroines like Mary Bowser and Mary Seacole, we are making steps towards a more equitable future. With that being said, spend five minutes of your day sharing Mary Seacole’s story with someone you know, read her book, or Google search her picture. In educating ourselves about the shameful secrets of the past, we are paving a world of justice for our future!