Nightingale, Florence

Abstract

Early in life, she became convinced that her calling in life was caring for the sick. Her family was horrified by this revelation, since nursing was considered an occupation for lower class women, who were believed to be generally drunken and slovenly. Nightingale persisted, however, and in 1850 she began to study nursing in Egypt, Germany, and France. In 1853, she was rewarded with an unpaid job, supervising a women's hospital in London.