Florence Nightingale
...her ambition, and she encouraged Florence to keep trying. In 1851, Florence’s father gave her permission to train as a nurse. When Florence was thirty-one years old she went to Kaiserwerth, Germany where she studied to become a nurse at the Institute of Protestant Deaconesses. When she was thirty-three she was appointed resident lady superintendent of a hospital for invalid women in Harley Street which is in London. In March of 1853, Russia invaded Turkey and Britain, and then France came to the aid of Turkey. Florence volunteered her services and was eventually given permission to take a group of thirty-eight nurses to Turkey. The men were kept in rooms that were unsanitary, and they didn’t have any blankets or decent food. Diseases such as typhus, cholera, and dysentery were the main reasons why the death rate was so high among wounded soldiers. In 1856, Florence returned to England as a national heroine. She was very shocked at the lack of hygiene and care that the men received in the British Army. She then decided to start a campaign to improve the quality of nursing in military hospitals. Florence published two books and in 1860, she used that money, and she founded the Nightingale School & Home for Nurses at St. Thomas’s Hospitals. She also became involved in the training of nurses for employment in the workhouses that had been established. Florence held strong opinions about women’s rights. She argued strongly for the removal of restrictions that prevented women having careers. Florence chose to work behind the scenes to get laws changed and disapproved of women making speec...