Florence Nightingale pioneered data visualisation of statistics.
But while better known for her contributions in the nursing and mathematical fields, Nightingale is also an important link in the study of English feminism. [...]
[Nightingale's essay] Cassandra protests the over-feminization of women into near helplessness, such as Nightingale saw in her mother’s and older sister’s lethargic lifestyle, despite their education. She rejected their life of thoughtless comfort for the world of social service. The work also reflects her fear of her ideas being ineffective, as were Cassandra‘s. Cassandra was a princess of Troy who served as a priestess in the temple of Apollo during the Trojan War. The god gave her the gift of prophecy but when she refused his advances he cursed her so that her prophetic warnings would go unheeded. Elaine Showalter called Nightingale’s writing “a major text of English feminism, a link between Wollstonecraft and Woolf.”[30]
Page 2 of 2 | Previous page
Rick:
December 7th, 2010 at 8:02 am
Without proper support (medical, logistics, sanitation), an army in the field can be completely destroyed by disease, starvation, and accidents; decimated without ever facing a single battle. Nowadays, this fact is a key pillar of military logistics. An amazing list of accomplishments all around.
tenya:
December 8th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
thank you for posting this! Nightingale is frequently considered ‘just a famous nurse’ without considering her contributions as a statistician and hospital administration. Which is not to downplay her contribution to nursing as an educated and important profession either, as at the time nursing was considered the worst ‘job’ available for woman – possibly if you’d done prison time and couldn’t even be hired as a servant was nursing a viable option, certainly not for ‘ladies.’
So yes, Nightingale is a huge figure in 19th century feminism and I am so glad to see her lauded here.