Florence Nightingale
Early Life
Late Life
Actions that would have been unfavorable today
Impact on society
She introduced hygiene practices that reduce mortality rates
She established nursing education with her book “Notes on Nursing” which outlined the principles of the nursing profession
She opened her first school, The Nightingale School for Nurses, and it offered the first official training program for nurses
She was one of the first people to carry out diligent handwashing (not prominent in the Victorian era)
She served as a nurse in the Crimean War and saved tons of soldier’s lives with her cleanliness and commitment (referred to as the Lady with the Lamp)
Nightingale was homeschooled by her father.
When she was a teenager she received a “divine calling” to do God’s work, which led to her advocacy of social and health care causes
She was born on May 12, 1820 in Florence, Italy and she was the younger of two children.
Nightingale refused to marry a man of means and turned down many proposals, which was prominent in the Victorian Era, and pursued nursing instead and her family was not pleased.
Her British Family belonged to elite social circles and her mother hailed from a family of merchants. Her father was a wealthy landowner who inherited two estates.
In the 1870’s Nightingale mentored Linda Richards, who was America’s first trained nurse
In 1883 Nightingale became the first recipient of the Royal Red Cross
In 1903 she became the first women to be awarded the Order of Merit
From 1857 onward, Nightingale was intermittently bedridden from brucellosis and suffered from depression
She died in London on August 13, 1910 at the age of 90.
Nightingale fully supported the imposition of British Culture on indigenous people because “would be simply preserving their barbarism for the sake of preserving their lives”
She opposed higher education for nurses that promoted women’s autonomy
She supported the genocide of Indigenous people under British rule, as can be seen in a lot of her writings on the subject
She would have nurses wear restrictive Victorian corsets so that they would fit into the rigid social mores, even though it made it hard to do their work
Nightingale believe in the Miasma Theory that bad smell and filth generated disease, and she labeled anyone who did not smell perfectly clean filthy.