Encyclopedias: Spartacus Educational: The Emancipation of Women: Florence Nightingale

Description: Abstract - Born in Florence, Italy, on 12th May, 1820. At seventeen she felt herself to be called by God to some unnamed great cause. In 1851 she went to Kaiserwerth, Germany where she studied to become a nurse at the Institute of Protestant Deaconesses. In 1856 after long service in the Crimean war, she returned to England as a national heroine. In later life she suffered from poor health and in 1895 went blind. She died in London on 13th August, 1910 after fifteen years as an invalid.