Do the people in the G&WS section know whom ‘Mary Seacole’ is/was and what she accomplished?
Yes! I totally agree that she is a geuine heroine and champion. Over the years, I’ve read several books about Mary Seacole, but they are six of one half a dozen of the other when it comes to how accurate they really are. While her own autobiography, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands is very interesting, I feel that the book Mary Seacole: The Black Woman Who Invented Modern Nursing by Jane Robinson was probably more objective and accurate than the autobio…but alas the latter book tended to lean towards the gossipy side rather than remain scholarly. The Robinson book asserts that Mary had a tendency to do a lot of self-promotion (especially in her autobio which was allegedly written to raise funds), she was also something of a spendthrift…and apparently like Florence, she had a snobbish side, too. Mary and the dancer Lola Montez famously didn’t get along. Mary was definitely affected by the racism displayed by Florence Nightingale and others. Yet, on the positive
