The gift shop of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine has begun stocking Forgotten Angels, which I co-authored with my daughter, Kalinda Page. The book profiles seven African American women who worked as nurses during the Civil War.
The genesis of the project was a paper Kalinda wrote when she was majoring in history at East Tennessee State University. She learned that many African American women served heroically during the Civil War. But their work was largely unrecognized. As a result, young Black girls find few role models when they study that central event in American history.
After I retired from newspapers, I was able to pursue our shared dream of expanding the paper into a book. Some of the women profiled, such as Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, are well known, though perhaps not for their service during the Civil War. Others, such as Ann Stokes and Rebecca Crumpler, are almost entirely forgotten, although they were important trailblazers. Ann was among the first women to serve in what became the U.S. Navy Nursing Corps and the first woman to earn a pension for her own service in the U.S. military. Rebecca became the nation’s first African American female physician.
The book is aimed at students and teachers and is readable at the middle-grade level. But many adults have found it engaging and enlightening, as well.
We’ve been thrilled by Forgotten Angel’s five-star rating on Amazon. And now it now is being offered in this well-respected museum in Frederick, Maryland.
Jack McElroy Books 