THE BLACK ANGELS

In the tradition of The Girls of Atomic City and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, please find attached The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis, a narrative non-fiction debut by Maria Smilios.

Spanning the Depression era, World War II and ending in 1952, when the famed Dr. Edward Robitzek and his two colleagues pioneered the cure for Tuberculosis at Sea View Sanatorium in Staten Island, the book chronicles the unlikely story of the Black Angels, a group of 300 black nurses who changed the course of history. In the mid 1930’s, when white nurses refused to work at Sea View due to the risk of contracting TB, New York City did something radical - they sanctioned a national call for “colored nurses.” They came from the south, the west and Middle America -spurred by the promise of good pay and free housing and settled in New York and risked their lives and placed themselves on the frontline in the global fight against the disease. It is because of their extraordinary courage that a cure was found. Their story is universally compelling and has been completely ignored. The Black Angels will be an amazing addition to the growing market of tales about the overlooked women of history. Structurally, it will weave together two dramatic stories: Black Angels and Tuberculosis. And although there’s been a lot written about TB and its fraught history, there are no suspenseful, page-turning narrative non-fiction books on the subject.

Two Black Angels -- Ms. Marjorie Reed, 89 and Ms. Virginia Allen, 84 – are still alive and author Maria Smilios has been working with both of them and they’re extraordinarily enthusiastic about the project.

Maria works as a Developmental Editor for Springer Science & Media in their biomedical sciences division, a job that has given her insight into the world of medicine, treatments, and disease. She has access to many of the world’s leading doctors and scientists, especially those studying and treating Tuberculosis. She’s a regular contributing editor at Narratively. Her work has also appeared in The Guardian, The Rumpus, Dame Magazine, and The Jewish Daily Forward, among others. She has an MA from Boston University in Religion & Literature where she was a Henry Luce Scholar and a Presidential Scholar.