WOMEN IN HISTORY - FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

            Founder of the modern Nursing Profession and inspiration for the Red Cross

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DATE OF BIRTH

May 12, 1820

PLACE OF BIRTH

Florence Italy

DATE OF DEATH

August 13, 1910

PLACE OF DEATH

London, England

FAMILY BACKGROUND

Florence was born into aristocracy.  Her grandfather was a member of parliament.   As such she was well placed in English society.    

EDUCATION

Florence and her sister Parthenope were well educated in Languages, Mathematics, History and Philosophy.  Florence was particularly adept at mathematics.  However, as she pointed out, once educated, she was taught to do nothing with what she had been taught.  She was, in brief, a Victorian woman.  

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Florence chaffed at the enforced inactivity of the women of her class.  She managed to get some training in nursing, so that when the Crimean war began, she was prepared.  However, it took a direct request from the British Government to persuade her father to let her go.  

Once in the Crimea, her work laid the foundation of modern nursing.  Following the war, she established the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and published “Notes on Nursing” which sold 15,000 copies in one month in 1859. 
 
She became the first female member of the Statistical Society of London.  
 
Florence Nightingale is the best documented Victorian woman after Queen Victoria herself.  The British Library has almost 200 bound volumes of her papers.

QUOTE

“The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm.”  ~ Florence Nightingale
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“Is man’s time more valuable than woman’s?  Or is the difference that woman has confessedly nothing to do?" ~ Florence Nightingale