Florence Nightingale Research Paper

Since the dawn of time, the woman has been the symbol of the home, the hearth and even early health care. As far back as the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale was a pioneer of early nursing and defined much of what we now see as commonplace today. Throughout several early health care milestones, she served as an inspiration for others to build upon her work to help health care continue to grow. During one early milestone, the Civil War, several hundred women volunteered for the war effort despite their lack of training and education only to be met with contempt from the military field physicians. Throughout the Civil War, many women earned their place next to Florence Nightingale for their outstanding achievements in health care and personal …show more content…
During the start of the Civil War, Dorothea Dix was already known for her progress with the mentally ill, but she took on a new challenge when she was appointed as "Superintendent of Female Nurses in the Army" (Bellafaire, J., Ph.D., Curator, "Women in Military Service for America Memorial", n.d). Under this new title, she set out to train the volunteer and military nurses in the field. She along with Clara Barton after the war were the founders of what now is known as the Red Cross (Bellafaire, J., Ph.D., Curator, "Women in Military Service for America Memorial", n.d). Phoebe Pember was another Superintendent at a different army field hospital located in Virginia during the war. She is most well-known for how she overcame a tremendous supply shortage and still managed to run the field hospital efficiently (Bellafaire, J., Ph.D., Curator, "Women in Military Service for America Memorial", n.d). Harriet Tubman is another strong, Civil War era woman who was already quite famous for her work in the Underground Railroad and helping escaped slaves. However, most do not know that she also served as a Union field hospital nurse along the Carolina coast during the war (Bellafaire, J., Ph.D., Curator, "Women in Military Service for America Memorial", n.d). Sallie Thompkins was among the most successful women of this era. She was the only woman to ever be commissioned into the Confederate Army, opened her own private hospital to care for Confederate soldiers, and the hospital had the highest success rate at the time with 1,300 patients and only seventy-three deaths ("Sally Louisa Tompkins", n.d). Susie Kim Taylor has the most honorable story of these powerful women. She was a black slave that served under a family that luckily allowed her to receive the most education that she was available to

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