Florence Nightingale

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century was not considered a reputable career. Nurses did not have any training and hospitals were unsanitary places where the poor went to die. Her parents finally gave in and Nightingale was allowed to go to Kaiserswerth, a nursing school in Germany.
During the Victorian era (1837-1901) true womanhood was greatly valued by society. “True womanhood was defined as being virtuous, pious, tender, dependent and understanding to the male authority”
(Aguirre, 1). Motherhood was the ultimate goal for every woman. Women were supposed to be concerned with feminine characteristics, roles and functions of family life. The ideal women in Victorian society were obedient, submissive and dependent on their husbands. Women who were not married were viewed as societal outcasts and not feminine.
Nightingale did not fit society’s image of womanhood. She was ambitious and sought a career rather than marriage in an era where it was desirable for women to be subservient to ...

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The hospital walls and floors looked like they had never been cleaned. There was no supplies, running water, latrines, basins, soap and they lacked most ordinary drugs. There were no utensils and the men ate one meal a day, if food was available, with their hands. Wounded men were placed on the dirty floor, resulting in even higher deaths.
Nightingale and her thirty-eight hand picked nurses spent twenty-one months establishing hygienic standards for the care of the sick and wounded. Nightingale spent much effort reorganizing the hospital. She established a pure water supply, providing medical materials and food. She reorganized the kitchen and the laundries in the hospital, bought ...

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