Why Is Florence Nightingale Important

In 1883, Florence Nightingale was awarded the Royal Red Cross by Queen Victoria as a symbol of gratitude for the impact Nightingale had made on healthcare. The Red Cross was the utmost symbol of honor, and heightened Nightingale’s status in the health industry. Nursing in the nineteenth century was merely a joke. Every hospital in existence screamed disease in every crack and corner. Yet, when Nightingale was requested by the military to put together a team of her nurses for the Crimean war, death rates were quickly reduced from forty-two percent to two percent (Pulliam).

She studied under Ann Preston, the first female dean of Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, during Cole’s time there. The primary issue that several people had with her work was her duty as a sanitary visitor. Some did not see the purpose of having a sanitary visitor since he/she would not be providing the poor with the tools they need instead just informing them on how to stay sanitary. Cole faced many challenges and barriers during her career as a physician. In the 1860s, the United States was just adjusting to the end of the Civil War and African Americans were free but not treated equally.

Richard, Busy Hands: Images of the Family in the Northern Civil War Effort (New York: Fordham University Press, 2003). This book can be best described as showing the influence female nurses had in the Civil War. It is noted that the bond the female nurses made with the male soldiers helped them on their way to recovery. The familial atmosphere that the nurses provided gave the soldiers a boost in mental and physical health. The book really shows how the compassion of the nurses went a long way.

The introduction Clara Barton is one of the nursing leaders that shaped history (Kerfoot 1998). Clara Barton will be the main focus of this assignment as she was a remarkable woman who started off as an educator and then a clerk and then a nurse and then one of the founders of Red Cross in America. In a time when women were not educated and were not even offered jobs she worked side by side with men. She was from the Not for Profit Sector. Her field was Nursing and she tackled with providing healthcare to those in natural disasters or war.

Cochran Mills was named after her father who was a wealthy businessman, and she was often called “Pink” because her mother almost always dressed her in that color. Later, she added an “e” to the end of her last name for elegance. Nellie became a professional muckraker and was a widely read female stunt reporter. She married Robert Livingston Seaman in 1895, and retired from journalism. Unfortunately, she died on January 27, 1922 in New York, New York from pneumonia after a life abundant with conquering hardships and tenacity.

However, many women were very inexperienced when they first started. According to the BBC article, “World War One: The many battles faced by WW1’s nurses,” “Thousands of young women from middle-class homes with little experience of domestic work, not much relevant education and total ignorance of male bodies, volunteered and found themselves pitched into military hospitals.” (S2) In other words, not all of the heroic nurses we hear about were very experienced at first. Most had to learn very quickly because of the enormous number of soldiers that needed to be tended to. Another quote from the same article is, “The image and the conspicuous Red Cross uniforms were romantic but the work itself exhausting, unending and sometimes disgusting.” (S2) This quote shows the reality of being a nurse in WW1. It wasn’t all fun and games.

Another figure in the estate who contributed to the war effort would be Lady Sybil, who volunteered to be a nurse after hearing distressing news of the death of men who she was well-acquainted with. Not wanting to feel useless, Lady Sybil finished her nurse training and joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment. Shortly afterwards, upon hearing of the suicide of Edward Courtenay, a patient blinded by the war, both Sybil and Isobel suggested to convert Downton into a convalescent home where the wounded could recover. This move would allow other characters like Cora to take more responsibility as seen in her management of Downton as a recovery center. While the middle and working classes were not very focused on, it should be noted that Downton Abbey still shows the

At the beginning of the novel, Frederic Henry arranges a tour to Italy during the world war one. When he returns to the front, he meets Catherine Barkley; she is a British nurse at the British hospital. However, the recent death of Catherine`s old fiancé affected her deeply that she will settle for the illusion of it. Catherine pretended to love Henry that awakens a desire for emotional interaction in Henry, the war has left coolly detached and numb. The main characters of the novel are Frederic Henty and Catherine Barkley.

However, many nurses are just giving out poor to bare minimum care (Peate 1). Just like Ian Peate is talking about in the article called, Kindness, caring and compassion “Of late not a day goes by when I do not pick up a newspaper or listen to a news summary in the United Kingdom with reference being made to poor standards of care, particularly around the care of the elderly, but not exclusively” (Peate 1). After reading this article I realized these problems don’t only happen in the United States but all over the world. Coming from my experience of working with nurses in nursing homes I have seen elderly who are unconscious not being feed or even bathe (Peate 1). The bathing issue occurs for months without anyone saying anything about it, because most of the elderly family members don’t even go visit them, so they are not there to witness or defend their relative.

In Nightingale’s time, there were a lot of sociopolitical constraints against women. Women weren’t allowed to inhabit leadership roles and for the most part, women were only allowed to work within their boundaries. Florence Nightingale left her privileged life to care for the sick and dying soldiers in the Crimean War for which

Mary Ann was just a wife of a soldier working as a nurse during the Civil war. Her life was quite different from the rest and definitely deserves recognition for what she has accomplished in her lifetime. Mary started out as a housewife, like most wives back then, in Gettysburg, PA. During the Civil War, she became a nurse near a campground in Gettysburg, as her husband was fighting for the union. She was doing regular nurse things, healing the injured, and saving the critically wounded. During her practices in nursing, a trauma was called in.

When Mary Phinney von Olnhausen worked at Mansion House Hospital, she received two letters asking her to relocate to different places. She could either go to a hospital in Tennessee or one in North Carolina. She eventually decided to go to Morehead City in North Carolina. At first, Von Olnhusen hated being there because there were not enough patients to care for to keep her busy. While at Morehead city, Von Olnhausen oversaw managing the laundry.

In 1856, she returned to the U.S and was named superintendent of nurses. Which meant she had a countless number of huge responsibilities. Many people found her, uptight, that she didn 't have the social skills to direct the military 's bureaucracy. After the war, she continued her work with the mentally ill. In 1870, she got

During the small battle Deborah noticed that a sward had pierced her side it was not long after until she had been shot in the lower thy of her left leg. Once the battle had ended Deborah was sent yet again to the hospital witch she was almost discovered for a second time. she managed to hide the wound on her leg from the doctor and pulled out the bullet in her leg and cleaned it as best as she could. Soon after she was cleared to join the army yet again and instead of being sent to fight was ordered to help take care of an injured man. Deborah was very pleased by this because it would give her leg more time to heal.

She realized she had been labeled as an abolitionist, and her life was in danger, but she was determined to help her people. She overlooked her safety to help someone in need. “Harriet established the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged on a property adjacent to her own. After undergoing brain surgery to try to alleviate the symptoms from the head injury that had plagued her since childhood, and being essentially penniless, Harriet was forced to move into the home herself in 1911. She died there on March 10, 1913, supported by family and friends”.