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Florence Nightingale's teenage years were marked by a desire to defy societal expectations for women at the time. She was intellectually curious and had a strong interest in subjects like mathematics and science. Despite her family's disapproval, she pursued her education and eventually found her calling in nursing.

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4w ago
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13y ago

Born into a wealthy, socially-connected British family while they sojourned in Florence, Italy, she was named after the city of her birth. In that, she followed her older sister Parthenope, who'd received the Greek name for the city of Naples. Her parents, William Edward Nightingale and Frances Nightingale, socialites who traveled extensively, clearly had a sense of whimsy, at least insofar as their children's names was concerned. At the time of Nightingale's birth, Florence was no more common a girl's first name than was Parthenope. That change is another that can be ascribed to her life's influence.

As a child, Florence Nightingale received the standard education of a wealthy British girl of her time: languages, drawing, music, dance and other fashionable humanities. She showed her unusual interests even as a child, demanding formal study in mathematics. Appalled at such a request, her mother refused it.

Inspired by what she understood to be a divine calling, experienced first in 1837 at Embley Park and later throughout her life, Nightingale made a commitment to assuage human suffering through the care of the sick. Her decision was viewed as outright rebellion by her family, who were committed to living socially acceptable lives as members of the British upper class. In those days, nursing was a career with a poor reputation, filled mostly by women who were not only financially needy, but of questionable moral purity, including female "hangers-on" who followed the armies. While on duty, nurses were equally likely to function as cooks as to provide supportive care to the sick and wounded. Upper class ladies of nineteenth-century England did not perform the work of servants, most especially if that work entailed exposure to unclothed men and the lady was an unmarried one.

Nightingale's diaries and essays show that she was extremely concerned with being a good person. This desire to do right created an enormous conflict for her, she felt she had a sacred duty to help ease human suffering, yet she knew she had a duty to obey her parents' wishes and to bring them pride rather than shame.

Nightingale was shocked by the dismal quality of medical care for poor and indigent people. In December 1844, in response to a pauper's death in a workhouse infirmary in London that had become a public scandal, she publicly advocated improved medical care in the infirmaries and immediately engaged the support of Charles Villiers, then president of the Poor Law Board. This led to a leading role in the reform of the Poor Laws. It was also in 1844 that Nightingale would first announce her decision to enter nursing, evoking intense anger and distress from her family, particularly her mother.

Florence Nightingale was courted by politician and poet Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, but she rejected him, convinced that marriage would interfere with her ability to follow her calling to nursing.

Rather than allow their daughter to begin nursing, her parents deflected her plans with a series of European tours. So Nightingale travelled, occupying herself with writing. In 1846, she managed to visit Kaiserswerth, Germany, and to learn more of the model hospital there first-hand. Kaiserswerth was established by Theodor Fliedner and managed by an order of Lutheran deaconesses, its high standards were revolutionary for a public facility of that time. She was profoundly impressed by the quality of care and by the commitment and practices of the deaconesses.

A year later, in 1847, she suffered a nervous breakdown from the continued strain of trying to please her family despite her calling to an occupation that was generally perceived as not only unladylike but actually dirty and dangerous. In a last attempt to distract her from her persistent resolve to engage in bedside nursing, her parents sent her off to Rome. "There, Nightingale wrote the letters later published as Florence Nightingale in Rome (1981), in which she begins to develop the "religious and philosophical views that would guide her life".[1]

While in Rome she met Sidney Herbert, a politician who had been Secretary at War (1845 - 1846), a position he would hold again (1852 - 1854) during the Crimean War. Herbert was already married, but he and Nightingale were immediately attracted to each other and they became life-long close friends. Herbert was instrumental in facilitating her later work in Crimea, and she became a key advisor to him in his political career. In 1851 she rejected Milnes' marriage proposal, against her mother's wishes.

Nightingale's career in nursing began in earnest in 1851 when she received four months' training in Germany as a deaconess of Kaiserswerth. She undertook the training over strenuous family objections concerning the risks and social implications of such activity, and the Roman Catholic (rather than Protestant) foundations of the hospital. While at Kaiserswerth, she reported having the most intense and compelling experience of her divine calling.

On August 12, 1853, Nightingale took a post of superintendent at the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in Upper Harley Street, London, a position she held until October 1854. Her father had given her an annual income of £500 (roughly £300,000 in present terms)[2] that allowed her to live comfortably and to pursue her career.

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14y ago

Florence Nightingale was born into a rich, upper-class, well-connected British family at the Villa Colombaia,[1] near the Porta Romana in Florence, Italy, and was named after the city of her birth. Florence's older sister Parthenope (pronounced /pɑrˈθi:nəpɪ/) had similarly been named after her place of birth, a Greek settlement now part of the city of Naples.

Her parents were William Edward Nightingale (1794-1874) and Frances ("Fanny") Nightingale née Smith (1789-1880). William Nightingale was born William Edward Shore. His mother Mary née Evans was the niece of one Peter Nightingale, under the terms of whose will William Shore not only inherited his estate Lea Hurst in Derbyshire, but also assumed the name and arms of Nightingale. Fanny's father (Florence's maternal grandfather) was the abolitionist William Smith.

Inspired by what she took as a Christian divine calling, which she experienced first in 1837 at Embley Park and later throughout her life, Florence announced her decision to enter nursing in 1845, despite the intense anger and distress of her family, particularly her mother. In this, she rebelled against the expected role for a woman of her status, which was to become a wife and mother. Nightingale worked hard to educate herself in the art and science of nursing, in spite of opposition from her family and the restrictive societal code for affluent young English women.

She cared for people in poverty. In December 1844, she became the leading advocate for improved medical care in the infirmaries and immediately engaged the support of Charles Villiers, then president of the Poor Law Board. This led to her active role in the reform of the Poor Laws, extending far beyond the provision of medical care. She was later instrumental in mentoring and then sending Agnes Elizabeth Jones and other Nightingale Probationers to Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary.

Nightingale was courted by politician and poet Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, but she rejected him, convinced that marriage would interfere with her ability to follow her calling to nursing. When in Rome in 1847, recovering from a mental breakdown precipitated by a continuing crisis of her relationship with Milnes, she met Sidney Herbert, a brilliant politician who had been Secretary at War (1845-1846), a position he would hold again during the Crimean War. Herbert was already married, but he and Nightingale were immediately attracted to each other and they became lifelong close friends. Herbert was instrumental in facilitating her pioneering work in the Crimea and in the field of nursing, and she became a key adviser to him in his political career. In 1851, she rejected Milne's marriage proposal, against her mother's wishes.

Nightingale also had strong and intimate relations with Benjamin Jowett, particularly about the time that she was considering leaving money in her will to establish a chair in applied statistics at the University of Oxford.[2]

Nightingale continued her travels with Charles and Selina Bracebridge as far as Greece and Egypt. Though not mentioned by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, her writings on Egypt in particular are testimony to her learning, literary skill and philosophy of life. Sailing up the Nile as far as Abu Simbel in January 1850, she wrote"I don't think I ever saw anything which affected me much more than this." And, considering the temple: "Sublime in the highest style of intellectual beauty, intellect without effort, without suffering... not a feature is correct - but the whole effect is more expressive of spiritual grandeur than anything I could have imagined. It makes the impression upon one that thousands of voices do, uniting in one unanimous simultaneous feeling of enthusiasm or emotion, which is said to overcome the strongest man."

At Thebes she wrote of being "called to God" while a week later near Cairo she wrote in her diary (as distinct from her far longer letters that her elder sister Parthenope was to print after her return): "God called me in the morning and asked me would I do good for him alone without reputation."[3] Later in 1850, she visited the Lutheran religious community at Kaiserswerth-am-Rhein where she observed Pastor Theodor Fliedner and the deaconesses working for the sick and the deprived. She regarded the experience as a turning point in her life, and issued her findings anonymously in 1851; The Institution of Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, for the Practical Training of Deaconesses, etc was her first published work.[4]

On 22 August 1853, Nightingale took the post of superintendent at the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in Upper Harley Street, London, a position she held until October 1854.[5] Her father had given her an annual income of £500 (roughly £25,000/US$50,000 in present terms), which allowed her to live comfortably and to pursue her career. James Joseph Sylvester is said to have been her mentor

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12y ago

Florence nightingale had a pretty good child hood as also being a nurse at a Hospital for 2 years so when she went back to the war she was a nurse and was able to have enough experience at helping people

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9y ago

Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820. She died on August 13, 1910, at the age of 90 years old, in her sleep.

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12y ago

she was a really intresting she liked to take care of animals and peploe althouge she was always getting in trouble

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12y ago

she loved it.Her parents were richandshe was homeschooled

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