Florence Nightingale correspondence
Creator: Nightingale, Florence, 1820-1910
Date: 1856 - 1897 (bulk 1877-1897)
Level of Description: Sub-collection/group
Material Type: Manuscripts
Call Number:
Menninger Historic Psychiatry Coll., Nightingale, Box 1
Unit ID: 223260
Abstract: These are original handwritten letters to and from Florence Nightingale, famous for being a pioneer English nurse. Topics include her health, her work and her interests in India and its irrigation systems, her mother's death, her correspondents' work and affairs (particularly Mr. Burton's children's institute), and other topics. Correspondents include, among others, Colonel James Fife, Alice Hepworth, F. H. Butler, and Mr. Burton. Also amongst the materials are dried flowers gathered from Cathcart's Hill in the Crimea. This correspondence is part of the historic psychiatry material in the Menninger Archives.
Summary: Handwritten letters to and from Florence Nightingale. Topics include her health, her work and her interests in India and its irrigation systems, her mother's death, her correspondents' work and affairs (particularly Mr. Burton's children's institute), and other topics. Correspondents include, among others, Colonel James Fife, Alice Hepworth, F. H. Butler, and Mr. Burton. Also amongst the materials are dried flowers gathered from Cathcart's Hill in the Crimea.
Space Required/Quantity: 0.50 cubic feet
Title (Main title): Florence Nightingale correspondence
Part of: Menninger Foundation Archives. Historic Psychiatry sub-collection.
Biography
Biog. Sketch (Full):
Florence Nightingale, the daughter of William Edward and Frances Smith Nightingale, was born 12 May 1820 in Florence, Italy (her father named her after the city). She and her sister Parthenope grew up in England on their parents' estates.
Nightingale began visiting English hospitals in 1844; on a visit to Egypt in 1849-1850 she visited the Alexandria convent of the St. Vincent de Paul sisters and then in the summer of 1850 she visited the Institute of Protestant Deaconesses at Kaiserwerth-am-Rhein in Germany. These visits reinforced to her that nursing was a necessary and honorable career, one in which women could excel. She began her own training as a nurse, and in 1853 became superintendent of the Hospital for Invalid Gentlewomen in London.
In the spring of 1854 the Crimean War began, a conflict involving Russia against the British, French, Ottoman Empire, and the Sardinian kingdom. Nightingale volunteered her services to care for the wounded British soldiers; and in October of that year she and her team of volunteer nurses, trained by her, were sent to Scutari (now a part of Istanbul, Turkey). This team did not include Mary Seacole, who had volunteered her own services; Seacole went to Crimea and tended the wounded on her own.
The conditions Nightingale found when she arrived--poor hygiene, a cholera epidemic, overcrowding, lack of care for the wounded, etc.--shocked her. Initially receiving little interest or help from the military in bettering conditions for the wounded, Nightingale used her contacts and influence to bring about changes. A Sanitary Commission was sent from England to improve conditions, which dramatically lessened the death rates from such contagious diseases as cholera and typhus.
A Nightingale Fund was set up late in 1855, and by 1860 enough money had been raised to fund the Nightingale Training School for nurses at St. Thomas' Hospital, London (now a part of King's College London). Nurses who went through this educational program often worked in the workhouses, caring for the indigent poor.
Nightingale wrote two books to aid her reform efforts; she also wrote on women's rights. Her advice was sought by government officials during both the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. She received the Order of Merit in 1907, the first woman to do so. An invalid for most of her later life, bedridden and blind by the end, Florence Nightingale died in London on 13 August 1910 at the age of 90.
Scope and Content
Portions of Collection Separately Described:
- Florence Nightingale, Box #1.
- Nightingale, Florence April 7, 1856 (Box 1, folder 3)
- Nightingale, Florence April 8, 1889 (Box 1, folder 15)
- Nightingale, Florence August 20, 1892 (Box 1, folder 18)
- Nightingale, Florence August 30, 1897 (Box 1, folder 24)
- Nightingale, Florence December 22, 1877 (Box 1, folder 8)
- Nightingale, Florence February 25, 1895 (Box 1, folder 20)
- Nightingale, Florence February 4, 1878 (Box 1, folder 10)
- Nightingale, Florence February 4, 1878 (Box 1, folder 9)
- Nightingale, Florence January 1887 (Box 1, folder 14)
More separate components
Portions of Collection Not Separately Described:
- Transcripts of letters dated: Nov. 30, 1862; July 6, 1877; Feb. 2, 1878; Mar. 1, 1880; Mar. 10, 1893 (Box 1, folder 1)
- Nightingale, Florence Kansas University Medical Center (Box 1, folder 2)
- Nightingale, Florence April 7, 1856 (Box 1, folder 3)
- Nightingale, Florence March 28, 1857 (Box 1, folder 4)
- Nightingale, Florence November 30, 1862 (Box 1, folder 5)
- Nightingale, Florence July 4, 1877 (Box 1, folder 6)
- Nightingale, Florence November 29, 1877 (Box 1, folder 7)
- Nightingale, Florence December 22, 1877 (Box 1, folder 8)
- Nightingale, Florence February 4, 1878 (Box 1, folder 9)
- Nightingale, Florence February 4, 1878 (Box 1, folder 10)
Locators:
Locator | Contents |
---|---|
078-02-05-03 |
Related Records or Collections
Associated materials:
Florence Nightingale letters, Clendening History of Medicine Library, University of Kansas Medical Center.
Auchincloss Florence Nightingale collection, Health Sciences Library Archives & Special Collections, Columbia University Medical Center.
Index Terms
Subjects
-
India
Nightingale, Florence, 1820-1910 -- Correspondence
Crimean War, 1853-1856
Irrigation -- India
Schools -- England -- London -- History -- 19th century
Creators and Contributors
Agency Classification:
-
Organizations/Corporations. Menninger Foundation Archives. Historic Psychiatry. Individuals. Florence Nightingale.
Additional Information for Researchers
Holder of originals: Photocopies of letters, Florence Nightingale letters, Clendening History of Medicine Library, University of Kansas Medical Center.