SMNTY Classics: Mary Seacole

Time for another Female Firsts! Yves joins us to share the story of Mary Seacole, author of what is considered the first autobiography by a Black woman in Britain in this classic episode. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samitha, and welcome to stuff
I've never told you protection to I heart radio. So
we have another female first classic episode that we want
to run in this month of March, the months of

(00:25):
women's history. And although again we feel like we're always
working in that realm, I was gonna say, if you
don't realize we talked about women, women's issues and women
around the world, you must be new here and welcome.
Welcome if you enjoy it. We got on wide earth
of content for YouTube. We cover a lot of topics.

(00:46):
I was trying to explain the show to somebody the
other day and I was like, wow, we really go
all over the place. I mean yeah, when I'm pointing
at educational stuff, I'm like, well, you go to here, here,
and here if you want to try to put that
on your classroom stuff. All right, all right, Oh goodness,
that's a task I don't want to undertake right now.
But one day I was at the beginning of the
pandemic working on playlists of ways that people could like

(01:09):
find different playlists like if you're like into this thing
or if you're into this thing. Uh, and then I
never completed it. I did I did, and for this
female first, Eaves brought us the story of Mary Sea Coal,
which I as with so many things, she wrought us like,
I'm so frustrated. I've never heard the story before. It

(01:31):
was definitely a story we should tell more often, that
people should learn about at a young age, and it's
one because we are in a pandemic and we have
been for two years. This story has come up a
lot in my mind and a lot of conversation with
my friends and especially our friend Marissa has been on
the show, who is a nurse, and I'll so we'll
just bring her up pretty frequently. And I'm it makes

(01:51):
me happy that the story is spreading, but we need,
we need to get the word out even more. Yes, yes,
so please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Annie
and Samantha and welcome to Stephane Never told you Protection
of I Heart Radio. And it's time today for another

(02:21):
female first, which means we are joined by our good
friend and co worker Eves Y. Hey, y'all, Hi, how
how are you? We haven't seen you in a while.
We're in our virtual studios and you have moved right,
I have moved. Um, it's been a wild ride so
you know, if I sound any different, that's why I

(02:41):
am in a new room. I have a new recording
set up here. But um, I'm lucky to have moved.
I can't complain that I'm in a place where I
can stay and I can sleep, and I have shelter
over my head, so all is well in that regard.
Of course, there's a lot more going on in the world,
and I'm also involved in that world. But the small
container of a new home feels pretty nice. I like it.

(03:06):
There's sort of a running joke during pandemic times when
people are interviewed, um are on these kinds of things,
they always have books behind them because it's, you know,
showing off that you're smart, or it's just it looks
nice and you have books behind you, and so do I.
But yours look a much more clean than mind you,
for someone who has just moved, and I have been

(03:28):
here for several years. In mys like it's gonna topple a.
Don't give me too much credit because the only thing
you see is the books. And the books are one
of the first things that I organized, because it was
so easy to just say, Okay, here's a box of books.
Put it on the shelf, so like that's in order
and it looks nice, but you know that's order a

(03:50):
monkey chaos. It's just really satisfying to get your books
out and were like putting it all in order how
you want to do it, whether it's like aesthetically or alphabetically,
and then you're like, oh, look I've got books. Yeah,
so I promise you is not about me looking smart smarter?
Oh yes, sure, just to put that out there. My

(04:15):
ego has nothing to do with the books behind me. Sure. Sure.
It is a very nice frame. I used to do
a lot of videos, so I appreciate there's books on
one side kind of offset. And then you've got your microphone.
Thank you. Yeah, I didn't expect a composition compliment, but
I'm always always ready with that. You know what, Samantha,

(04:37):
you look good too. You gotta blur. She's got the
skype blur going. I'm just the blur. I don't. I
don't actually want you to see what's behind me, because
there's nothing about behind me other than maybe some concerned
about like how are you living right now, Samantha? What
is wrong with you? So I just blur it all
out and all you can see is color. Hopefully I
stand out in that brightness that might say something about

(04:57):
your how you deal with emotions. Yes, I just want
to blow it out. I'm not trying to get to
in depth. I was. You're getting pretty deep right now.
I know. I know, well it was my job for
a while. Um. I know, listeners know I'm very annoying
when it comes to like fonts and transitions and movies composition.

(05:19):
So I gotta let it out sometimes I feel you
like I'm mad at it, um and it kind of.
Books is a good segue into the person we're talking
about today. Actually, so can you tell us who did
you bring? Yes, true books is a good segue. Today
we'll be talking about Mary se Cole, who has a

(05:41):
very very interesting history and biography. So I brought her
to the table today because her autobiography has been considered
the first one that was written by a black woman
in Britain. But there is a huge asterisk on that.
I'll go ahead and say the name of the autobiograph,
which is the Wonderful Adventures of Mrs s Cole in

(06:03):
many Lands, which is a great like a great title. Um.
As a person who's an aspiring adventurer, and like just
loves the idea of travel, and there are so much
culture and history and just social implications that are wrapped
up in travel based on like who had access to
actually be able to travel. UM was super interested in,

(06:27):
you know, the outward appearance of like who she was. UM.
But yeah, like I said, there's a huge asterisk on
this one because of the controversy that surrounds the truth
of her autobiography and what actually happened in her story. UM.
So there's a lot we'll get into in that respect. UM.

(06:49):
And I think that ties in well to the thing
that we usually say in these conversations, which is the
disclaimer around what a first is, what a first means.
And in Mary's c case, a lot of people wouldn't
even say that it's the first, um, because of her
history and her ancestry, you know, depending on what side

(07:10):
you talked to in this debate. UM. But yeah, I
don't want to get to ahead of myself, but I'll
just say that I just think it's a great opportunity
to talk about what a first actually means, you know,
what it means to have sorts of debates like this
when it comes to the historical record and biographies. Yeah,
I don't want to go I won't go too too

(07:31):
deep into that yet. I think I need to actually
get into her story first. I love the title. I
think that's the first thing. I was like, Oh my gosh,
this sname steam so fantastical. But yeah, An, so you're
reading more about it. I was like, Oh, that's a
lot of intensity in that. Yeah, I was. I've been
reading it on and off the book since you suggested

(07:52):
it us, and I love, like, not even the chapter titles,
but at least from the source I was reading it.
Um had like sub chapter titles of what happens in
the book, and they're excellent, and you know, I don't
know how much of it's true or not, but every
king I was like, this woman did so much right, right,

(08:14):
oh man traveled everywhere. Yeah, the chapter titles are like
very descriptive of what happened in her travels, um so.
And and then there are also a lot of questionable fiction.
There's a lot of questionable diction in the way that
she refers to people and refers to herself. Um. Yeah.
So it's one of those things like well, you know,
she gets to tell her own story, So there's the

(08:36):
line between she's telling her own story and what actually happened, UM,
and the bias that can come in in a person's
own story, but also the truth of a person's own
story that's coming from their own voice. UM. Yeah. So
on that note, I guess I could say that she's been,
you know, kind of pit it in the same category

(08:56):
as Florence Nightingale. And throughout the book. The debate that
you know that has come up in terms of her
biography is that she never called herself black. So going
back to what I said, she's considered to have written
the first autobiography by a black woman, Well, she never
called herself black. She called herself creole, and she had
a mixed race ancestry. And I'm sure that you read

(09:20):
this because you were reading the autobiography Annie. But she
says in it in one place, I have good Scotch
blood coursing in my veins, and that comes near the
beginning of it. So she's very clear about you know,
her position on this. From the very beginning. She would
describe herself as yellow um as she was fair complexioned
and um, she had a white father and a mother

(09:41):
who was of mixed race. Ancestry as well, whom she
called a creole as well. So um, there were also
descriptions in the book of black people that were she
specifically like there are parts where she says something like,
while the good for nothing black cooks, instead of lending
me their a would standby and laugh with all their teeth.
I just want to call in here that obviously I'm

(10:03):
using these quotes out of context. So if you would
like to read the book yourself, of that would be
great to do so you can see the lines that
come around these, because I can't quote the whole book verbatim. Um,
but there are a lot of instances where she others
people and it's sort of clear that she's not considering
them to be within the same group as her. Um.
But there are also instances in the book where she

(10:25):
seems to be recognizing racial discrimination that she faced and
commenting on that, and commenting on issues like slavery, even
though that didn't happen so much. But all of that said,
it is just I would love to preface the conversation
of the conversations that are around her, of all the
myths and the myth making that has been happening, and
quote unquote campaigns around what her legacy should look like

(10:47):
and what people who are supporters of Florence Nightingale want
her legacy to be about. So just that's just a preface.

(11:09):
We could actually talk about her life and her autobiography now, yeah, yeah,
and that's a great preference. And um, I know we'll
get to this probably at the end, but there has
been sort of a very recent um campaign, as you say,
are just sort of recognizing of Mary s Cole and

(11:30):
a lot of conversations around that are happening right now.
So yeah, and always there are always conversations about, Okay,
what were the missing or identified? Are ones that are
legacies that were pushed to the bottom because of a
person's race because of Mary seacol situation. Was a black woman,
which is a conversation that's going around, Well, was her

(11:51):
history suppressed or hidden because she was a black woman
working within this imperialist space that was Britain and bringing
her history backed up in order to recognize that. And
on the other hand, people just crediting her saying that
you know, she was three quarters white. I'll just start
by saying that she was born in Kingston, Jamaica in

(12:13):
eighteen o five, so her mother lived there. Her father
was white. He was from Scotland. There's a little bit
of discrepancy over what his profession actually or his occupation
actually was. He's been said that he was an officer
in the British Army, but there are conversations around who
he actually was. But he was white um. And then
there was her mother, who was, like I said earlier,

(12:34):
of mixed rass ancestry um and Mary called her mother
Creole like her. She supposedly learned her nursing and all
her business skills from her mother, who ran a boarding
house in Jamaica which was called Blundell Hall. And so
yellow fever was like a common disease in the Caribbean
at the time. And her mother probably learned the herbal

(12:57):
practices that she practiced with on people, and she used
on people from enslaved women, who in turn learned from
their ancestors. So there was that passing down of herbal
medicinal knowledge um. And she married Secol. Herself considered, like
I said earlier, consider herself Creole in British rather than Black.
And in her autobiography she didn't talk much about the

(13:21):
socio political the whole climate that was happening around her
um as she was living and working in Jamaica, like
the uprising things that were happening that enslaved people were organizing,
or the abolition of the slave trade in slavery which
happened in the early eighteen hundreds. But she was aware
of the situation with slavery in the US, and the

(13:43):
um mentioned the people who were escaping and commending them.
So when she was born, and just for us to
talk about the climate, at the time she was born,
slavery was still in practice in Jamaica, and in fact,
enslaved people outnumbered white people greatly. On in Jamaica, there
were some free people and then there were creoles on
the island as well, people of mixed rights ancestry. And

(14:05):
Mary herself was born free, and she had this pride
to be a British subject, and she was committed to
the idea of empire. She really wanted to go to
London when she was a child, and she did end
up doing that for the first time somewhere early in
her life. And she's pretty she's pretty uh, what is it.

(14:26):
Nebulous is the word. She's pretty vague about the details
of her early life in her autobiography. She kind of
breezes through those points, like I'm trying to remember. What
she said in her autobiography was something like, we don't
need to mention my age, Like she she kind of
didn't want her age to come up when she was
talking about when she went to London. Yes, she even
says something like, give me a widow, give me that right.

(14:49):
Not it was very uh, very yeah it was. She
didn't want it to be said, but um, it was
in her earlier years when she went to London. She
ended up going there for some time and then she left. Um. Oh,
but I will mention that there was a part where
she says she was teased or made fun of because
of her complexion, along with a companion who was there

(15:12):
with her, who she said was a little bit darker
than her. Specifically, she said, I am only a little brown,
a few shades duskier than the brunettes whom you all
admire so much. But my companion was very dark and
affair if I can apply the term to her subject
for their rude wit so um. She talks about that experience. Um.

(15:35):
When she went to London a year later, she went
back to London, UM. And then she brought back with
her a bunch of West Indian spices and homemade jams,
and she stayed there for a few years. This time
so she spent a lot of her earlier years traveling
in the Caribbean and Central America, which, as I said earlier,
it means that she had access to be able to

(15:56):
travel to all those different places. UM. And she ran
and taverns, and she ran boarding houses and along the
way and learned about medicine UM. And she leaves out
a lot of detail in the autobiography, especially of those
first years. She details more of her later years in
the autobiography, but there, even with the details that are

(16:18):
there are often dubious UM and have been called into
question after it was after the autobiography was published. So
the detailed chronology of her life and exactly how she
made a living at this time and this time and
all the business ventors that she was in and what
she actually sold, what she actually did UM has been
called into question. But in her travel she did sell fugus,

(16:41):
and she did help her mother and ran boarding houses
and worked with her brother, and there's a lot of
business ventus and back and forth, one of things that
she sold that she was clearly involved in. So yeah,
I was trying to do it timeline before this, and

(17:02):
I just got so confused and gave up and essentially
came to the conclusion she traveled a lot. Yeah, and
did a lot of things. Yeah. Yeah, that's basically like, yeah,
I think putting together like first it was this and
then she went to this place, and then she went
to this place. Is it would be very hard to
do based on like because there are a lot of

(17:25):
things that she said in her own autobiography, the things
that other people said about her, quotes about her from
military personnel, and then the historians who have done work
on her and um, yeah, but she definitely did travel
a lot, and she was in Central America, she was
in England, and she she traveled. During her travel, she

(17:47):
did tend to people and did sell provisions. So she
did also Mary n One Sea Cole in eighteen thirty six.
He died not long after. He died in eighteen forty four,
and around the same time, like during these years, she
had some things happened to her, like her mother also died.
Her home and a boarding house caught on fire. Um,

(18:09):
and she was able to bring back up the boarding
house bundle Hall and was up and running with success
within a few years. But here's you know, she's still
traveling during this time. So in eighteen fifty she joined
her brother in present day Panama, and Panama at the
time saw a lot of travelers who were on their
way to the California Gold Rush, and she went there

(18:32):
at the time. Before leaving, she had She talks about
in the book how she had all this clothing and
foods made, and all these jams and all the sausages.
I feel like I'm making up sausages. I can't remember
all the foods, she says she had, but she had
a bunch of foods and was preparing things. And Panama,
she sold supplies to travelers and she ran a boarding

(18:53):
house there where she served as a doctress, and that's
what she called herself. She didn't call herself a nurse. Um.
So she practiced in herbal medicine and followed in the
same path as her mom and actually talks in the book,
or says in the book how she admired her mom.
I can't remember the specific language that she used, but
she looked up to her mom and says that she
wanted to follow in her path and that was important

(19:15):
to her. Yeah, yeah, I think I when I was
putting together her story, and you know, you start with
her mom was a respected had this boarding house was respected.
I don't know that she would use the word doctress.
But in medicine, practice medicine, and she um er Segel

(19:36):
kind of followed in those same steps. She did those
same things. Yeah, she did. And she got a reputation
for helping people, um who got in cholera. She says.
In the book, she talks about a few of her
medicinal recipes, not too many of them, but she talks
about giving them water in which cinnamon had been boiled. Um.
She talks about to use mercury and mustard, poultices and plaster.

(20:00):
But there's not a whole bunch that's known about the
exact recipes that she used for her remedies. UM. And
she also treated people who were her in fights. And
while she was in Panama, she opened a place called
the British Hotel, which actually served as a restaurant. And
she also around this time when she was in Central America,
ran a woman only hotel and just what I put

(20:22):
in here because I found it really interesting. On the
other podcast, Dad Your Savior, we just did an episode
on cinnamon. It was a classic and mustard, and those
both have been used medicinally historically, so I personally found
that very interesting. Nice. Yeah, um uh, there's a whole
conversation about the the practices and the medicines that she

(20:45):
actually used on people and her being discredited because of
the practices that she used on people and she didn't
have any formal nursing training, um, and things like that
that we'll get into later. But um, there are a
few more um things that she used that are listed
in the book as well, um, that you could look up. Yeah,

(21:06):
so it's super interesting. Mustard oil, mustard the essential oil,
and the mustard being the thing that's helping and yeah,
imagine you you know way more about that than I
do anything that you just Yeah, it was. It was
really interesting because it's not one of those things. Mustard
is not something that comes to the forefront of my mind.

(21:27):
And I've been doing a food show for a while
and almost everything was used medicinally, um at some point,
and mustard as one that was like, huh, because it
lasted for a long time. People used mustard medicinally pretty
like up into the eight nine hundreds. Yeah, I um,
this really is unrelated to the show at all, but
I UM, I was looking up mustard essential oil for

(21:51):
unrelated reason why it had nothing to do with Mary
Sea coal. Um, just because I was trying to figure
out I one to make it inhaler that like has
properties like what Sabby does for like the signing is clearing,
and um figure that like mustard maybe helpful and realizing
that it was like toxic in some ways. But anyway,

(22:15):
that's like a whole aside um. But yeah, really interesting.
Um So yeah, anyway back to the story. I like this,
keep talking about all you should look into a Sabby.
There was Sabby smoke detector. Things really m with Sabby
smoke detector. What is that? Well, I think it's for

(22:36):
if if you have trouble hearing, can't hear the Sabby smell, okay,
and kind of that feel, Um, we'll wake you up
and you know, because you can't hear the alarm, then
you'll have that going on. This was Sabby was an
episode we did like three years ago, So this is
all very rusty dusty in the back of my brain.

(22:57):
But you know, maybe further research. But yes, we could
go on to the side about horse radish and mustard
and the snobby products for a long time. But perhaps
let's get back to Mary's Siegel. We have some more
of our conversation with Ease, but first we have a
quick break for a word from our sponsor, and we're back.

(23:28):
Thank you sponsor. So she went back to Jamaica at
a point, and then back to Panama, and along the
way she continued to treat people and sell goods um
but when she learned about Britain's involvement in the Crimean War,
which took place from eighteen to eighteen fifty six, she
decided to volunteer her services. So, as the story goes,

(23:49):
she wanted to be amonga pride and pomp of war.
I think she said something like along those lines in
her autobiography. But she wanted to volunteer her services and
eight people and soldiers and officers in what way that
she could during the war. But it's also been said
that her motives were more to make money as a
businesswoman rather than to aid sick and injured soldiers. So

(24:13):
she was what was called a sutler or a person
who sold provisions to officers in the military, and so
she would sell food and alcohol to officers. And that's,
you know, also part of her story and has been
debated her true motives for going over and joining the
war effort. But as she recounted in her autobiography, she

(24:36):
brought letters of reference from British officers in Kingston and
people kept turning her down along the way when she
was asking to volunteer her services. Um, there was Elizabeth Herbert,
who was recruiting nurses on behalf of her husband who
was the Secretary at war, who supposedly said that all
the nursing positions have been filled. So she went to

(24:59):
Turkey any ay and apparently tried to join nurses but
was again turned down. And so there are others stories
or elements of the story and which she said that
she was turned down from a position because they would
say the position was filled, and the question was whether
it was about her race or not. Um. But in

(25:22):
her autobiography there is a part in there where she
questions whether her skin color had something to do with
why she kept being turned away and said, was it
possible that American prejudices against color had some root here.
Did these ladies shrink from accepting my aid because my
blood float beneath a somewhat duskier skin than There's also
the word dusk ear. That's the second time that I've

(25:44):
said that in the gloats from her, and it's definitely
an interesting choice for darker dusk gear is definitely one
of those old, those old things. But um, yeah, that's
just an aside. So she she did decide to hit
to Balaklava in the Cromere herself, um, and she intended
to start the British Hotel. There was these cards or

(26:06):
flyers about it, and she wanted it to serve as
a mess table and comfortable quarters for sick and convalescent officers.
So it's said that because she was funding it with
her own money, she could only treat people who could
pay her um. But it's also you know, the conversation
around that as well as that it was first and

(26:27):
foremost a business that really operated as a restaurant in
a store for officers who at the top had much
more money than soldiers. It could actually pay for all
the things that she was offering for purchase. So she did.
She did provide supplies and food to officers and also
spectators who came to see battles. Yeah, I guess wow,

(26:52):
all right, you know before Netflix, Uh interesting, Yeah, it
was the thing. And she's been described also as making
tea for wounded soldiers and tending to their wounds, and
she provided catering for events. So she talks about how

(27:12):
during her work she ran into British military personnel whom
she had already known from her time in Jamaica, and
many people referred to her as mothers sa Cole and
viewed her favorably. So when the war ended, she went
back to England with little money um, and not in

(27:35):
the greatest health. And she talks about how other people
returned to England with more money, but she she wasn't
set up that way, um, And she had to declare
bankruptcy when she went back to England. And there are um,
there's information in the press, um a little bit in
articles about the bankruptcy proceedings, um, which were possibly because

(27:57):
of a venture with a business partner named Thomas Day
that went at And this is just one of those
things like it's not we're not going to be able
to put everything in. But Thomas Day, Um was one
of her business partners, was a white man, and a
bunch of rumors swirling around this Thomas Day guy, but
um them getting to business ventures together that didn't go

(28:18):
so hot, him potentially doing things that messed up their
business ventures and messed up her money. Um, potentially having
a daughter with her. These are all rumors that swirled
around Thomas Day. Wow. Yeah, so it's a lot of
a lot of stuff like that in in her story.
But there were creditors who were looking for Mary c.
Cole for payment, and yeah, there are articles about her

(28:41):
her going through bankruptcy. But there's also this whole super
interesting element of fundraising that happened around Mary se Coal
because when work got out of her financial troubles, a
fund was set up for her. UM though she apparently
didn't get much money out of it, A bunch of
fundraisers for her continue to pop up. But this included

(29:03):
later in her life. UM, there was a benefit held
in her honor that supposedly had tens of thousands of
people show up and pay like a certain amount to
get in. UM. So there are a bunch of these
efforts that happened around raising money for Mary Sea Coal
and kind of um, people who are attesting to her

(29:25):
reputation and other people who didn't want to donate money
to her necessarily. Um, but that was a large part
of her her later life, and she was able to
make money from some of those fundraising efforts. Yeah. I
was reading about those and and um, as you say,
a lot of information around this is sort of I

(29:48):
don't know how true that is, but one of the
things I was reading said there was like a four
day fundraiser for her. Yeah, and like thousands attended and
thousands of dollars was raised. Wow. Yeah, interesting, Uh huh.
There's a lot of um praise that happens in her
around other people who were speaking of her as saying

(30:10):
she was, you know, the motherly Sea Coal figure. Um,
she took care of me. I loved for her to
be around, and that's been called into question as well.
You know, there was a lot of that around surrounding her,
and also on these fundraisers were pretty like they happened
from time to time, happened occasionally, but this was around

(30:31):
this time too, after she went back when her autobiography
was published, which was it was published in eighteen fifty seven, UM,
and it was dedicated to Major General Lord Rokeby, who
was a commander of the first Vision in Crimea. It
also contained an intro by Times correspondent William Howard Russell.
He has one of those praising quotes, um, and we'll

(30:53):
get to that later, um. But he's also supposedly wrote
praising quotes about her as well. And in the book
she details her travels and her experiences in the Crimean War.
She talks a little bit about the first half of
our life, um, but then she spends more time on
her years in Panama, even more time on her life
and Crimea, and in the end she talks about going

(31:16):
back to England. So she did get some recognition and
money from the autobiography and it got some good reviews. Yeah.
So that's the quick and dirty version of all of
the travels that Mary s Cole went through and the
things that she said she did when it came to
healing people. Um. She spent her later years in Jamaican

(31:38):
England UM, and apparently aligned herself with a lot of
people in the royal circle and upper circles. And you know,
she even was able to get property through her fundraising
efforts later in life, and she died in May of
UM and she was buried in St Mary's Roman Catholic

(31:59):
Cemetery and canceled Green in London. So that's the short
of her actual biography. But there then there's all the
controversy around what happened the bringing back of her legacy
arts talking about her legacy again, how she's kind of
re emerged in these times, and her inclusion and curriculums.

(32:23):
There are sources and bused that have been made of
her showing that she got several medals of including the
French Legion of Honor, but she herself never claimed that
she want any but there are a lot of sources
who that say she got this medal and she got
the Cromia medal, and but that none of those have

(32:44):
ever been attributed to her, and most likely she did
not get those because you know, even the Crowmia metal
required her to have served. So that's part of one
of those things that there's been debate over and people
are trying to correct the misinformation that's going around owned
about her. UM. Since her autobiography was published, there have

(33:04):
been more editions of it that were published as well,
with different introductions. So, as you said Annie earlier, there
are a lot more people who have raised her legacy
to the forefront, and that has also brought up people
who are questioning the use of bringing her legacy to
the forefront again and what she actually did. And part

(33:26):
of that is because of Florence Nightingale, who wound her
way into Mary see Cole's story in some parts. So
there stories about how Nightingale didn't approve of the alcohol
that she sold to soldiers or officers, um that she
wasn't supposed to do that that it was improper, and

(33:48):
her being turned down by nighting Gale because she was black.
There have been other instances um specifically one where the
BBC and a show or in a program called Horrible
Histories portrayed see Cool in a certain way and portray
Nightingale in a way where it made her look racist.
She pushed Sea Cool out of the way because and

(34:10):
she was just as a nurse. There's a bunch of
controversy over the portrayals of nighting Gale in relation to
See Coal that put Nightingale in an unfavorable light essentially,
So there all the critics of Sea Cool and the
Supporters of Nightingale have said that Secol's role in the
Crimean War has been really overhyped. So they have claimed

(34:33):
that like her treatments weren't as effective as they've been portrayed.
She didn't really actually save a bunch of lives, but
that her care was comforting to people who were sick
and or who were hurt. But her actual use and
benefit or if you want to put in those terms
of production, but you know, her actual what she did

(34:53):
for people was hyped up to discredit Florence Nightingale, who
doesn't look the best in Seacole's biographies. And it's been
said that some of that misinformation has been circulated so
that she can replace Nightingale as quote, the founder of
modern profession of nursing, So she wasn't there. They also
say that se Coel wasn't a nurse. Um though places
like the BBC, as I was talking about earlier in

(35:16):
that program Horrible History, has a portrayed her as such. Um.
So some of those people even went to the BBC
and said, hey, look, this portrayal of Sequel isn't correct,
like you need to fix it and makes Nightingale look bad.
Um and The BBC fought that complaint for a while
but said that ultimately said that the portrayal of Nightingale

(35:37):
was inaccurate. But there have been people who have been
very vocal about what they say is the myth making
around se col So. Specifically, there was a professor in
a former MP in Canada. Her name was Lin McDonald um.
So she's been super vocal about it um and she
was involved and I think co founded the Nightingale Society.

(35:59):
She has a bunch of videos on the issue, and
she's one of the people who really puts forward the
idea that yes, se Cole was really kind and generous,
but she didn't save a bunch of lives, you know,
she did things like Tanta sports injuries. She said that
she wasn't actually a battlefield nurse as some people make
her seem um and doesn't deserve to be treated as

(36:23):
a pioneer in nursing um. So they kind of what
they do is portray her as an opportunistic businesswoman, basically
as a sutler character instead of the nurse character who
has when we're looking at if we're going to look
at her legacy in terms of that kind of characterization, Um,
but who happened to be good at comforting military personnel

(36:45):
who needed it, So she was They say, yes, she
could have been this mother see cool figure who did
help treat people, but kind of downplay the importance and
the actual impact of the work that she did. Um
and say, well, you can't discredit Florence Nightingale's legacy and

(37:07):
history two make Sea cool look better in any way.
That's kind of the angle that that they come from.
So yeah, that's the whole, the whole part of the
way that people look back at, um Sea calls legacy. Yeah,
I find that I find that fascinating. You've probably run

(37:28):
into this more than I have eves, since you're more
into like history world than I am. But um, just
how many times in history we've hitted female historical figures
against each other instead of kind of just looking at
this story and this story, what did this person do?
What did this person do? Instead it's like, well, who

(37:51):
is the mother of modern nursing or whatever it is,
which you should definitely examine those relationships. But I just
find it, um sort of telling that that happens a
lot with um women in history, right, Yeah, and hasn't

(38:12):
stopped today. You know, that's still that thing that happens
in for instance, like the rap industry, are different artistry
industries where women are pitted against each other, um, and
in this case, um, the whole. Yeah, it's kind of
like a Florence Nightingale versus Mary c cold beef that

(38:33):
we're we're putting on them from the future, not that
not necessarily happened while they were both alive, but yeah,
it's the It's definitely something that there's a thread of
when you're looking looking back at history and how women
were pitted against each other. Yeah, and I do think

(38:53):
like as we as we always say about first and like, um,
how how many first were raised and all of the
stuff that happened to lead up to it first and
the erasure of um, women of color and black women
specifically when it comes to white women, Like, I think
that's totally a conversation worth having always. It's just funny

(39:13):
to me that it becomes like you can't take this
away from Florence starting Gale, right, it doesn't have a
bigger conversation and that it not only does it talk
about the erasure of what when another did, which is like,
why can't we just celebrate that both they did something
and it approved and it was something to be credited for.

(39:35):
But on top of that, like that conversation that we
continue to have his but why is there such limited
space that we have to have an argument about who's
worth talking about instead of actually just bringing in the
holes like this is an amazing thing. Let's celebrate all
of this. There's enough space for everyone. Why not, right?
I think that's a really great point. You bring up Samantha,
just because in thinking about the arguments that people have

(39:57):
against there are people. These people are you know, her her,
We should they shouldn't necessarily include her incurriculum, is what
I was trying to say earlier when I'm gonna get
the work right. But um, that they shouldn't necessarily include
her in curriculum. And there was this fight over whether
she should be taken out of curriculum because of the
way that the supposed misinformation that has been going around

(40:19):
about her. But I think it's a great point because
the points like, oh, well, she didn't necessarily save a
bunch of lives. She just made people feel better. It's like,
and there's nothing wrong with that. Both and can be okay,
both and are valuable, and it kind of devalues it
makes the work that people do when it comes to healing,

(40:42):
when it comes to treating people. Um, it devalues some
work over the next um and in this specific case,
values the work of a white woman over UM, a
woman with black ancestry. UM. And I think that, Um,
it's just so many layers to the conversation around Mary

(41:04):
see Cole, because there's the element of race itself with
and I didn't even get to the other side of people.
So I'll get I'll get to that right now before
I even dig deeper into that side, so I can
explain that and make it clear because there was is
another side. These people who I was mentioning earlier, who
are critics of the way that her legacy is being proposed.

(41:26):
A lot of those people are protectors of Florence Nightingale's legacy,
which should be said for sure, UM. But there are
the people on the other hand who have said that
her history has been erased and overshadowed by Nightingales. UM.
But then there are people who aren't even talking about Nightingale.
They're just like, well, Secal's legacy deserves to be talked

(41:48):
about right now. Um. And there are people who do
view her as a black woman and say that her
accomplishments should be viewed in that light, and they reject
the view that at Nightingale supporters put forth, saying that
that downplays and discredits people who used herbal remedies to
help people and other traditional practices in healing, and that

(42:12):
she did really have success in medicine and in minor
surgery um. And that all the moves to remove her
from curriculum and to strip away her blackness and claims
that her accomplishments are exaggerated are just kind of strategies
to remove her contributions from Britain and that historical record

(42:34):
and discredit all the things that she actually did do.
So you know, they're calling into question her critics are
calling into question that anything she did ever was important,
even if they say, oh, yeah, this happened. She definitely
helped people, But does it really matter? Do we really
need to talk about it? Um? And so there are

(42:56):
the issues of well, there's her race, um, questions over
percentages over her race, of that she was three quarters
wide and only one quote unquote quadroon, and that she
really was very fair skinned um and did have privilege.
And then there's the issue of her not calling herself

(43:18):
black at all. And then there's the issue well, you know,
we still need to recognize the things that she actually
did when it came to treating people. Um And even
if it wasn't to the extent of saving thousands of lives,
did she actually leave an impact on the people that

(43:40):
were involved or that she treated um. So yeah, I
think it's just so many layers to it, um, which
makes her history just so complicated and as very tangible
and real example of that, there is a statue of
her at St. Thomas's Hospital and len did which is

(44:01):
affiliated with Nightingale, which Nightingale's folks took as kind of
a fight to them, they're like, why Sea Coel here?
She didn't do anything? And on it there's a quote
that's attributed to the Times correspondent who I spoke of earlier,
William Howard Russell, and the quote was, I trust that
England will not forget one who nursed her sick, who

(44:22):
sought out her wounded to aid and sucker them, and
who performed the last offices for some of her illustrious dead.
So that's one of those praising quotes that comes from
someone else and speaking about Sea coal Um and that's
on the statue, and there was a whole debate over
why that statue should be there, whether it should be there,
and that Sea Coel shouldn't be honored in that way

(44:44):
at the hospital because of Nightingale's legacy that's wrapped up
in the hospital. That sounds like a narrowed version of
all lives matter. I mean, I know that's good kind
of a generalization, but just like why are you? It's
not one against another. It's that we're focusing on something
that as significant at a time, whatever it may be,
and that we gave credit to that not a lot

(45:05):
of people know about and that should be celebrated and
it's worth celebrating. It's not like a slight to anyone else.
Is not to slap you in the face, to be
like ha ha, see, we're not about you. And it's
such a like a weird like conversation, especially because Mary
Seckel maybe she wasn't as medically um knowledgeable as Nightingale.

(45:25):
I don't know, but what I hear as a social worker,
I'm like what we have discovered as of late, and
I'm not know, I'm just stretching, is that if mental
health is not taken care of, that physical health may
not be taken care of either as much medical procedures
that can happen. And it sounds like Mary Seckel did
kind of all of that, Like not only did she
try to bring the medical aspect, but she also gave

(45:46):
the mental health, loving nurturing aspect as well. That was
a little bit more unheard of at that time of crisis,
you know. And I'm like, why can't we credit her
for that? Right? And oh, I love that point because
it's something that people wouldn't necessarily have had the language
for at the time, Like she wouldn't have been saying
mental health and quotes, but she would have been performing that.

(46:09):
Here's the line she says, I do not think that
we hot blooded creoles sorrow less for showing it so impetuously.
But I do think that the sharp edge of our
grief wears down sooner than their's, who preserve an outward
demeanor of calmness and nurse their woes secretly in their hearts.
And I'm like, oh my gosh, you're talking about black anger.

(46:30):
You're talking about perceptions of black anger. And notwithstanding all
of the black women's anger, specifically UM and pain and
black women's pain and the way that we show it,
in the way that it's perceived and the way that
it's treated. And I'm like, well, I need to read
that line like so many more times, because there's a
lot that can be called into question in the way

(46:51):
that she spoke about other people and looked at other
people and viewed them as not part of the group
that she was part of. UM. But I totally agree
with what you're saying, Samantha, where it's like in an
explicit and not so explicit went At the same time,
the people who are criticizing the work that she did do,
they're recognizing the fact that they that she did address

(47:13):
mental health and she did make people feel better and
she did help people, but saying that that's not worthy
of our praise and our recognition. So I think that
in a way devalues. I mean, there's a lot that
can be said about, you know, the criticism itself, but
the fact that they acknowledge that she did work and

(47:34):
devaluate at the same time, I think take some credibility
away from anything that may actually be credible that they're
calling into question. Agreed, Yeah, agreed as well. We concur
we do have a little bit more for your listeners,
but first we have one more cup break for worksimoor sponsor,

(48:09):
and we're back, Thank you, sponsor. I just think, um,
we were talking about Lucy Parsons, but Mary se Coel
just kind of brings up a lot of issues that
are happening today and in different aspect and different time frame,
and it's just weary some I guess, but at the
same time like validating, like, yeah, this has been a thing,
and this has been a conversation and it's just in

(48:30):
a different narrative. And this is why it's so important
that we do look at the history of what has
happened and what is happening then what is happening now
in that same level of her, whether practices and medicine,
whether it's being acknowledged. And I read the information that
she was talking about the fact that Americans were more
um racists towards her or prejudice towards her, and she
noted that it was Americans, which is really sad um

(48:54):
in every way because it seems like it really hasn't changed.
Maybe I'm just who caught up in everything that's bad here. Yes, yeah,
there was a part two I think where if I'm
remembering correctly, I think where she said something along the
lines of could it be that here in London, when
she was in London, they have the same prejudices that

(49:16):
they have in America. Um. Yeah, so yes, Uh it's
funny because I mean there's obviously the conversation about racism
that's explicit and racism that's veiled, and um, all of
those conversations and uh um yeah, I think that goes

(49:36):
deep because you know, she presented she was very fair skinned,
so she presented in one way and also says that
she had experiences of being treated as a black woman.
So yeah, yeah, there's a lot of unpack it is.
It's very um complex and nuanced conversation happening around her

(49:59):
and the and the book. We'll say, from what I've read,
is enjoyable and it didn't make me think a lot.
And also if anyone, if I you're like on the
fence about reading it, one of the chapter like subtitles
is I am taken for a spy and they're at
lose my temper, So come on, come on, it's time yeah, yeah,

(50:23):
and I feel like as a society we definitely like
to we don't like complexity and nuance a lot of times,
we just like the bite size headline thing. So I'm
glad we're having this conversation now. I think it's really important. Agreed. Well,
thank you so much as always, Eves. Such a pleasure,
Always learned so much, Always love seeing you and hearing

(50:45):
you you too. Where can the good listeners find you?
You can find me on social media. Um. You can
also hear me on This Day in History Class, a
podcast about history. Um. But yeah, you can find me
on social media. I'm at Eve's Jeff Coke. You can
also look up This Day in History Classes socials. They're

(51:07):
all T D I h C podcast and yeah, that's
about it. Yeah, and definitely go check all those things
out if you haven't already. And if you'd like to
contact us, you can. Our email is Stuff Media, mom
Stuff that I Heart media dot com. You can find
us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram

(51:28):
at Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks as always to
our super producer Andrew Howard. Thanks again to you, Eves,
and thanks to everyone for listening Stuff I've Never Told
you the production of I Heart Radio from more podcasts
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