Florence Nightingale is one of the most important women in nursing history. The history and story behind Florence Nightingale is a primary source since it gives an opportunity to relive in imagination for us now how life was for people at that time, especially for women and healthcare. Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy in May of 1820. She was very close to her father William who was a wealthy landowner, Unitarian, Whig, and was also involved in anti-slavery movement. Due to their close relationship and lack of a son, her father took upon her education and taught Florence Greek, Latin, French, German, Italian, history, philosophy and mathematics. At a young age Florence stated she felt the call of God to some unnamed great cause. Her mother Fanny primary concern was to find her a good husband yet Florence refused to marry.
At the age of 25 she expressed the desire to become a nurse and her parents both were opposed since at that time nursing was associated with the working class women and Florence was in a category higher than that.
Illustrated London News (24th February, 1855)
Florence inspiration came from meeting Elizabeth Blackwell at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London; she was the first woman to be a Doctor in the United States. Her father agreed to support her decision to study and she went to study in Kaiserweth, Germany. Within two years she was nominated as resident Lady Superintendent of Harley Street in London a hospital for invalid women. Once the Crimean War started in 1853, Nightingale saw it as an opportunity to serve the man and volunteered along with other nurses to Turkey but was limited to cleaning and servicing the injured only as the physician saw fit. The British army men were dying of Cholera and Malaria. Nightingale started cleaning the area were the soldiers were since it was filthy and she felt cleanliness was important to health, she started documenting and charting information on decrease of death from infections and wounds and presented a document. As a result of the detrimental conditions in the hospital in Scutari where she was stationed, Nightingale began a campaign to improve the quality of military hospitals once she came back from England. In 1856 Nightingale had an interview with Queen Victoria to share the afflictions the military hospitals suffered and also so that she could gain support for nursing education, health reform and the importance of having a proper space for education. The year after she provided evidence to the Sanitary Commission and eventually resulted in the formation of the Army Medical College.
Attached is the link for an online movie regarding the importance Florence Nightingale provided for the improvement of healthcare and nursing. She is seen as a revolutionary in this field and a heroine of the times due to the difficulty women encountered then by planning to practice outside the home and being anything else other than wife’s. The primary source is the actual story of Florence along with some pictures or drawings taken at the time.
There is also a movie made by PBS about Florence’s life and effort to reform healthcare which I also believe it to be a primary source. The authors of these primary sources attempt to enlighten us with information about the beginnings of healthcare and how our nation learned and benefited from learning and sharing of information especially at a time where were pandemics were rampant in battlefields and no knowledge of how to control it was available.
This website has the direct link to the life of Florence Nightingale and it’s a vivid primary source of her life and the life of that era. It helps reflect on the changes that were taking place and how people coped with them. The thoughts Florence had for healthcare reform is still the basis for many health reforms even now.
Florence Nightingale Receiving the Wounded at Scutari — 1856 — The Mission of Mercy by Jerry Barrett.
This picture on the left is a primary source of the story of Florence Nightingale depicts a nickname that was given to her by the soldiers as the lady with the lamp because she would be the only one allowed checking on the ill after dark, she was incessant in her duty to care and improve the life of the wounded men.
The story of Florence has been a foundtion for my career up to this point I now understand and value the possibilities of nursing and the respect that comes along with it, learning from this sources that nursing in the past was considered work of protitutes it has come a long way from that and without the information provided to us via the writtings she left it would have been imposible to know her story and the emphasis of those who were willing to dig more into history to learn and portray the difficulties and sucesses that came aobut with the work of people from the past. I hope you enjoy these information and although is of much value to me because of my interest I hope it provides a little glimpse of the importance our health care now.
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