How to buy the book

You can order at History Press as well as Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other on-line retailers. I will send you a signed copy for $23, a little extra to cover shipping. I will send you both Slave Labor in the Capital and Through a Fiery Trial for $40. Send a check to me at PO Box 63, Wellesley Island, NY 13640-0063.

My lectures at Sotterley Plantation in St. Mary's County, Maryland, on September 23, 2015, and the DAR Library on December 5 are now blog posts below listed under book talks. The talk I gave at the Politics and Prose Bookstore on February 28, 2015, along with Heather Butts, author African American Medicine in Washington, was taped by the bookstore. Take a listen.

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Dr. May commends Nurse McMahon

"In 1799, when there were only '12 to 14' laborers at the Capitol, they gave Jane Short the cook notice, as well as Nurse McMahon."

Quote from Slave Labor in the Capital, page 146

When the commissioners unceremoniously closed the hospital for slave and free laborers, it seems to me that the doctor in charge, Frederick May, tried to prod them to add some class to the proceedings. He wrote a letter to them commending the work of the nurse.


In the letter he doesn't ask them to commend her but why else laud her services when they were no longer needed? The commissioners had already made their dissatisfaction with Dr. May's services clear complaining that he charged them too much. I think May was trying to get the commissioners to honor their long time and only full time employee at the hospital and at the same time show that they had not included her in their criticism of the doctor she served.


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