Biddy Mason Mural

 

A panel of Bernard Zakheim’s “History of Medicine in California” features Biddy Mason, center, an enslaved woman born in 1818 who became a nurse.Credit...Chris Carlsson

    Carol Pogash is a writer for the New York Times and Huffington Post among several others publications. Pogash is a published author of three books that dive into the AIDS epidemic, murders, and even former President, Donald Trump. 

    Pogash has a writing style that is very analytical, which really helps get across who Biddy Mason was and the importance of the mural, and why it should't be torn down. The analytical style can be seen with quotes such as :

"Ms. Voisin George recognized a central figure in one of the vivid social realist tableaus: Biddy Mason, a Black nurse, is depicted alongside a white doctor, as they treat a malaria patient. Mason, an enslaved woman born in 1818, went on to become a midwife, a nurse, a philanthropist and a founder of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles"

"U.C.S.F. had announced plans to demolish the building to make way for a state-of-the-art research center. The university had informed Zakheim’s son Nathan that if his family didn’t retrieve the frescoes, which weigh as much as 2,500 pounds, they would be destroyed."

    Pogash's main source was graduate student Laura Voisin George who stumbled upon the mural and its possible demolition while writing a series of scholarly articles. This adds credibility because it was scholarly sources being used by a scholarly source author. 

    I would consider this article to be very reliable as it goes into history of Biddy Mason and the mural while citing scholarly sources and authors of such sources. 

Pogash, Carol. “A Black Nurse Saved Lives. Today She May Save Art.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 11 Aug. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/08/11/arts/design/biddy-mason-zakheim-murals.html.