Florence Nightingale – the respectable rebel
An inspirational exploration of the life and times of an extraordinary pioneer, who, when told "It can't be done" calmly replied, "It must be done.".
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Lucy: Every generation has a different interpretation of Florence Nightingale. There are so many biographies, some portraying her as a (sickly) sweet angel, some deriding her as a hard–hearted middle class racist. I've long had a big interest in the history of medicine, particularly the social aspects. My own view is that Nightingale broke many moulds. The clothes of her youth are meant to emphasise submission and passivity; the fashions of her maturity were ludicrous in their sheer size and inconvenience. Yet Nightingale overcame the expectations of her gender and class to pioneer nursing management techniques. Not many people realise what a brilliant mathematician & statistician she was, in an age when, according to Thomas Carlyle, merely choosing a bonnet was too great a task for the female brain. |
| 'Florence Nightingale – the respectable rebel' is a one–hour solo–talk
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