Florence Nightingale was born on May 20, 1820 to the wealthy landowner, William E., and his wife Fanny Nightingale in Florence, Italy. (Pettinger) Being a part of the wealthy class during the mid-1800s, William and Fanny dedicated themselves to the pursuit of active social lives like many others. Florence and her sister, Parthenope, were home schooled by their father and learned multiple languages, mathematics, and history. Both Florence and her sister were affluent in Italian, Latin, and Greek. (Audain)
Growing up, Florence was lured to the idea of social living and marriage; however, she quickly was drawn to another calling in life. The idea of achieving independence and placing herself in a career which helped the common good and society in the deepest became her dream. Nightingale was determined to become a nurse and work in hospitals. At the time, nursing was considered a non-respectable field of study and her parents strongly disapproved. Taking their concerns into consideration, Florence decided to overlook their opinion and pursue the requirements needed to become a nurse. She began researching and gathering information about the career for approximately eleven years, until she was granted permission from her parents to spend a few months at Kaiserwerth, a German training school for female nurses. (Biography) Here, emphases were in the areas of: hospital care, social work, and geriatric care.
In the early 1850’s, Nightingale returned to London. Here she acquired a nursing job at the Middlesex Hospital for ailing governesses. Later in 1853, she became a superintendent of London Charity Supported Institution for ill, gentle women in distraught circumstances. (Biography) In October of that year, the Crimea war broke out a...
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...ugust 20 in the family plot. Services for her memorial were held at multiple places all over including: St. Paul’s Cathedral and Liverpool Cathedral. Nightingale’s new contributions to the medical field still stand today.
Works Cited
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Cook, Edward T. "Online Reader." 16 July 2012. The Life of Florence Nightingale Vol. 1 of 2. Web. 11 December 2013.
Pettinger, Tejvan. Biography of Florence Nightingale. 25 November 2010. Website .
Vicinus, Martha and Bea Nergard. Ever Yours, Florence Nightingale. United States: Library of Congress Cataloging in Publications Data, 1989. Book.
Wooham-Smith, Cecil. Florence Nightingale 1820-1910. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1951. Book.
Louisa Mary Alcott wrote her book, “Hospital Sketches”, based on her experiences spent as a volunteer nurse at the Union Hospital in Georgetown during the American Civil War. Her account is considered a primary source that reveals the culture of nursing of the that time period. Nursing had a different definition by the historical American culture compared to today’s idea and principles of nursing. Women from various societal backgrounds were recruited into the nursing workforce to cure and heal the soldiers at war. Most of these nurses lacked proper medical experience and skills and were fairly unprepared for the unmanageable working conditions. Alcott experienced the crowdedness, poorly ventilated and rationed food as she severed as one of the nurses of her time.
Magill, Frank M. Great Lives From History, American Women Series II. Pasadena: Salena Press, 1995.
Meyer, Edith Patterson. First Lady of the Renaissance: A Biography of Isabella d'Este. Boston: Little, Brown And Company, 1970.
Favor, Lesli J. Women Doctors and Nurses of the Civil War. New York: Rosen Pub. Group, 2004. Print.
Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy on May 12, 1820. Even in her early life, Florence would find it necessary to help the sick people in her community. As the years went on Florence realized nursing was her future because it was her divine purpose. Her parents were not enthused by her plans to become a nurse and even prohibit her to pursue nursing. It was frowned upon in this time period of a woman with her social background to become a nurse. It was actually in the rights for her to marry a man of means, but when Florence was seventeen she declined to marry the man who offered her hand in marriage. She had her reasons for not accepting the proposal, she new she did not have time for a marriage at this time in her life. Despite the disapproval from her parents Florence set out to chase her dreams of becoming a nurse and enrolled as a nursing student at the Lutheran Hospital of Pastor Fliedner in Kaiserswerth, Germany.
When one thinks of the evolution of nursing, several noteworthy women come to mind, yet one stands out, Florence Nightingale. In Notes on Nursing, Nightingale says “…put the patient in the best conditions for nature to act upon him.” (1859, p.75) She established standards that reformed the industry. For example; her practices of sanitation and aseptic methods led to a decrease in hospital mortality rates. By keeping records of care given, techniques used and the outcomes; by utilizing these records, she implemented documentation and evidence-based practice. She started the ball rolling on the transition of nursing from a belittled trade to the profession it is now proclaimed to be. Nightingale, in conjunction with other
Florence Nightingale was the Nurse of Nurses. In nursing school she is the first person you will hear speak of. She is known as “The lady with the lamp”. Her theory focused on the adjustment of the environment provided to protect the patient. She thought that a sleeping patient should never be awaken. Noise should always be avoided because it can startle the sleeping patient. This was a serious problem to her. She delegated tasks to other nurses, always keeping the patients safe and away from harm.
In November 1856 a Nightingale fund was set up to found a training school specifically for nurses. In 1860 she laid the foundation of modern nursing when she established her nursing school at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. It was the first nursing school in the world. Nightingale spent the rest of her life promoting and spreading medical knowledge. She especially promoted and organized the nursing profession. She died at the age of 90 peacefully in her bed on August 13,
Morrow, William. “The Divine Mrs. V.” New York Magazine. Harper Collins Inc. 4 November 2002. 11 March 2014. Nov. 4, 2002 http://nymag.com/nymetro. Web.
During the mid to late 18th century, nursing had transformed into a respectable and accepting career. With the significant advances brought on by Florence Nightingale, nurses were now viewed as suitable care takers. This was especially true during the Civil War, where many women were sent out to take care of the soldiers. “Lessons from the Crimean War and Florence Nightingale had made it clear to Americans that nurses (even if they were untrained) were needed in times of war to care for wounded and ill soldiers (Judd/Sitzman, 97).” In this essay, I will compare the images, training, education, and work performed by American nurses in the Civil War between Louisa May Alcott’s Civil War Hospital Sketches to that of the History of American Nurses.
Florence Nightingale Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy. Her parents named her after the city she was born in. She was born on May 12, 1980, she was raised mostly in Derbyshire, England. Many people when they hear Florence Nightingale think about her as a nurse and her fight for better hospital care. Florence did a lot more in her life than achieve better hospital conditions, and become a nurse.
Florence Nightingale, named after the city of Florence, was born in Florence, Italy, on May 12, 1820. She would pursue a career in nursing and later find herself studying data of the soldiers she so cringingly looking after. Born into the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale took the lead role amongst her and her colleges to improve the inhabitable hospitals all across Great Britten; reduce the death count by more than two-thirds. Her love for helping people didn’t go unnoticed and would continue to increase throughout her life. In 1860 she opened up the St. Tomas’ Hospital and the Nightingale Training School for Nurses before passing August 13, 1910 in London. Her willingness to care for her patients was never overlooked and wound establishing
Before the modernization and reform of their profession in the mid-1800s, nurses were believed to perform “women’s work”, which implied menial duties, unskilled service, and an overall lack of skill (Garey, "Sentimental women need not apply"). This mentality was substantiated by the “untrained attendants, [including] past patients, vagrants, and prostitutes,” that performed a variety of nursing tasks (Garey). Florence Nightingale’s nursing experiences during the Crimean War, her subsequent publication of Notes on Nursing, and her work to build up professionalism within the field transformed the way that the world and society viewed nursing. She introduced invigorating ideas of patient care, nursing roles and responsibilities, and was a strong proponent of nursing education. Nightingale’s overall work inspired and changed the profession of nursing, laying the foundation for its
Florence Nightingale was a pioneer in nursing and maintained it as an independent profession which was not secondary to the medical profession but equal. *Nightingale 1969 cited by Hoeve et al 2013
It was during this training that Florence Nightingale received a request from Henry Parkes, in Sydney, for a team of trained nurses able to implement Florence’s nursing standards in the Sydney Infirmary and Dispensary. Florence Nightingale decided that Ms. Osburn, as a middle class woman with nursing training, would be the most appropriate choice to undertake this mission and made her Lady Superintendent (Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1974). Ms. Osburn worked for sixteen years at the Sydney Hospital, implementing many reforms to the nursing structure, hygiene, and facilities. She was eventually successful in implementing Nightingales style of nursing in Australia, before retiring in 1884 (Godden, J. and Forsyth, S.,