Dr. Eileen Yanoviak will celebrate the release of the first biography of Lucy Higgs Nichols, The Tenacious Nurse Nichols, at the Cultural Arts Center with a book talk and signing. Lucy Higgs Nichols was a Civil War nurse who escaped enslavement in Tennessee, joined the Indiana 23rd Regiment as a cook and laundress, and rose to the position of nurse. She lived a life of freedom and honor in New Albany, Indiana after the war. Bolstered by the dedication of her veteran peers, she was an honorary member of the Grand Army of the Republic and even successfully petitioned Congress for an Army Nurses Pension. Despite harrowing obstacles and unimaginable pain, Lucy achieved notoriety, nobility, and self-sufficiency in a post-Civil War era that often denied Black Americans and women justice and opportunity. 

Free and open to the public, but reservations are requested.

Dr. Eileen Yanoviak is a non-profit professional, educator, and historian with more than twenty years of museum and education experience. She is formerly the Director of the Carnegie Center for Art and History, now the Floyd County Carnegie Library Cultural Arts Center, a branch of the Floyd County Library in New Albany, Indiana. With a doctorate in art history from the University of Louisville, Dr. Yanoviak has curated dozens of art and history exhibitions and has authored and edited catalogues and essay collections, including Gaela Erwin: Reframing the Past and Formations of Identity: Society, Politics, and Landscape.