The Wondrous Body of Mary Seacole: Mobility, Subjectivity and Display in a Transatlantic Life
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The Wondrous Body of Mary Seacole: Mobility, Subjectivity and Display in a Transatlantic Life by Alison Elizabeth McMonagle B.A. in English, George Washington University, May 2003 M.A. in English, University of York, March 2005 A Dissertation submitted to The Faculty of the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy January 31 2011 Dissertation directed by Maria Frawley Professor of English The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that Alison Elizabeth McMonagle has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of 10 December 2010. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation. The Wondrous Body of Mary Seacole: Mobility, Subjectivity and Display in a Transatlantic Life By Alison Elizabeth McMonagle Dissertation Research Committee: Maria Frawley, Professor of English, Dissertation Director Jennifer James, Associate Professor of English, Committee Member Dane Kennedy, Professor of History, Committee Member ii © Copyright 2011 by Alison McMonagle All rights reserved iii Abstract of Dissertation Wondrous Body of Mary Seacole: Mobility, Subjectivity and Display in a Transatlantic Life This dissertation explores the fashioning of Mary Seacole’s public image as seen in Seacole’s narrative, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands, and the periodical press in the British mainland and the Jamaican colony. Central to my examination is a contextualization of the precise historical moments Seacole details in her narrative as well as those moments during which Seacole achieves her greatest celebrity: the South American Republic of New Granada in the early 1850s; the Crimean War and its aftermath (1853-1860); Seacole’s death (1881); the death of Seacole’s sister Louisa Grant (1905); and Seacole’s modern rise to fame in Jamaica and in the United Kingdom (c1990 to the present day). Through this contextualization I argue that the fashioning of Seacole’s public image reflects notions of race, nation, gender and colonial power throughout British history. The first chapter uses the language of Wonderful Adventures to explore the manner in which Seacole and the editor of her narrative construct Seacole’s early life in the Caribbean and South America so as to appeal to the prejudices of her English audience and its fear of expanding American cultural and political imperialism. Chapter 2 continues this examination of Wonderful Adventures reading it as a Crimean War memoir that constructs Seacole’s image as a reflection of the current political climate and contemporary notions of gender, race and nationhood. Chapter 3 shifts to an analysis of the construction of Seacole image as seen in British periodicals. I place iv Seacole in conversation with fellow black women who achieved some degree of fame in England in the mid-nineteenth century, reading Seacole’s public image as a reflection of existing roles available to the public black woman. Chapter 4 continues an analysis of the periodical construction of Seacole’s public image, aligning Seacole with the Irish celebrities Lola Montez and Catherine Hayes and arguing that while all three women achieve a great degree of fame in England they are denied complete access to Englishness. I conclude my work with an exploration of the continuing fashioning and consumption of Seacole’s public image in the modern United Kingdom and Jamaica. v Table of Contents Abstract of Dissertation v Table of Contents vi Introduction: Theorizing Mary Seacole’s Life and Body 1 Chapter 1: Race and Identity in Mary Seacole’s Americas 41 Chapter 2: Mary Seacole the Crimean heroine 75 Chapter 3: Transatlantic Mobility and the Wondrous Body of the Free Black Woman in the Nineteenth Century Press 120 Chapter 4: Mary Seacole and the not quite English Victorian celebrity 154 Coda: The Modern Mary Seacole 183 Works Cited 195 vi Introduction: Theorizing Mary Seacole’s Mobile Body and Mobile Life “[S]urprised, also, seemed the cunning-eyed Greeks who throng the streets of Pera, of the unprotected Creole woman who took Constantinople so coolly (it would require something more to surprise her); while the grave English raised their eyebrows wonderingly, and the more vivacious French shrugged their pliant shoulders into the strangest contortions. I accepted it all as a compliment to a stout female tourist, neatly dressed in a red or yellow dress, a plain shawl of some other colour, and a simple straw wide-awake, with bright red streamers. I flatter myself that I woke up the sundry sleepy-eyed Turks, who seemed to think that the great object of life was to avoid showing surprise at anything; while the Turkish woman gathered around me, and jabbered about me, in the most flattering manner.” ~ Mary Seacole, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands On the ground floor of St Thomas hospital in London, nor far from the Thames and the Westminster Bridge, visitors and locals can find the Florence Nightingale Museum.i The museum dedicated to the Lady of the Lamp is relatively small in size, composed of one large room divided into smaller rooms and filled with pictures and placards explaining Nightingale’s inspiring personal history and dedication to the health of the British subjects in the nineteenth century.ii Visitors are lead through a series of dividers as they retrace Nightingale’s past from her childhood to her passing in 1910. Approaching the portion of the museum dedicated to her service during the Crimean War, the visitor is presented with a brief and perfunctory history of Nightingale’s often overshadowed Crimean counterpart: Mary Seacole. Rejected by the War Office, Seacole, a seasoned medical aid and entrepreneur, traveled to the Crimea and established the British Hotel near the battle lines. Seacole offered medical assistance to the suffering and neglected British soldiers while sustaining herself through the sale of goods and materials needed by the men in the Crimea. She fell under the gaze of William H. Russell, the 1 famous war correspondent, and received a great deal of attention in English newspapers during the war. Upon her return from the Crimea, Seacole found herself bankrupt and subsequently published her hybrid travel narrative and Crimean War memoir the Wonderful Adventures of Mrs Seacole in Many Lands in order to capitalize on her lingering fame. The few placards dedicated to Seacole’s life recount this history and are accompanied by a sketch of Seacole’s face, a sketch of the British Hotel composed by Lady Alicia Blackwoodiii and a small mirror and hat stand where the visitor can try on various bonnets created specifically in the style of those Seacole donned with great care on the battlefront. A note placed above the hat stand reads, “Mary Seacole was a warm outgoing character. She wore colourful costumes and hats that matched her personality. Her favourite outfit was a canary yellow dress and a blue bonnet with the brightest scarlet ribbons” (Florence Nightingale Museum). This description parallels contemporary periodical accounts of Seacole that stress her eccentric and outgoing nature. Her colorful clothes mark her as a non-English or ethnic body and also serve to separate Seacole from the iconic images of Florence Nightingale dressed in muted colors that can be found through the Museum. The note continues, “Have fun trying on some copies of Mary’s stylish hats. The hats are made specially by Veronica Wagner and are based on Seacole’s own descriptions” (FNM). I was able to don some of these special order bonnets and gaze at myself in a mirror, imaging what Seacole must have looked like lying in the mud of a Crimean War battlefield wearing such an elaborate hat. Almost 120 years after her death, the Florence Nightingale museum offers its visitors a chance to actively consume Mary Seacole’s image. No section of the museum offers the public an opportunity to act 2 like or even become Florence Nightingale. Nightingale’s image is untouchable and kept in a proverbial glass case, while Seacole’s body and legend are open to the desiring public. My first reaction to this small exhibit was disgust and alarm. In 2004, prompted by the BBC’s “Greatest Briton” debate – which produced a list of 100 men and woman none of whom were black – Mary Seacole was named the “Greatest Black Briton.”iv Since then she has received increased attention from both educators and the media, making a large mark on mainstream culture in the UK. Yet despite this clear attempt to ‘right the wrongs’ of Britain’s past mistreatment and neglect of the black body, here was a clear disparity between the presentation of two female contemporaries whose public fame occurred at the same historical moment. In his work on blackface minstrelsy in American culture Eric Lott claims that the racist exploitation and consumption of the black body continues, in subtle ways, into modern society. He writes, “Every time you hear an expansive white man drop into his version of black English, you are in the presence of blackface’s unconscious return” (5). Is Mary Seacole’s place in the British imagination merely another example of this modern “unconscious return” of blackface? The museum appears to cater mostly to school groups and the occasional Nightingale devotee. The information provided is instructive and easily accessible to a mass public interested in learning more about this powerful and brilliant women and her place in British history. Seacole’s inclusion in this story signals a nationwide push to bring Seacole back to her rightful place in both the history of Victorian England and that of modern nursing. I recognize and applaud these very noteworthy and important moves on behalf of the place of women and black subjects in British history; however, I believe 3 beneath and within this seemingly innocuous public memorial to one of the most famous women in British history lies another lesser-told tale of the manipulation and consumption of the ‘Black Florence Nightingale.’ My goal is to tell this story through charting the creation and reception of Mary Seacole’s public image.