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Reviewed by:
  • Notes on Nightingale: The Influence and Legacy of a Nursing Icon
  • Michael D. Calabria, OFM
Sioban Nelson and Ann Marie Rafferty, eds. Notes on Nightingale: The Influence and Legacy of a Nursing Icon. The Culture and Politics of Health Care Work. Ithaca, N.Y.: ILR Press, 2010. vii + 172 pp. $59.95 (cloth, 978-0-8014-4906-2), $18.95 (paperbound, 978-0-8014-7611-2).

Like other iconic individuals, Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) has been the subject of considerable debate regarding her character, competency, and [End Page 687] contributions to nursing. Although more than a century has passed since her death, scholars have yet to completely elucidate this remarkable and controversial figure. The present volume, comprising seven essays by American and Canadian scholars, continues the discussion and debate and is a valuable addition to the growing body of modern scholarship on Nightingale’s life and legacy.

The introduction by the volume’s editors, Sioban Nelson and Anne Marie Rafferty provides a brief overview of Nightingale’s significance and biography and introduces the essays that follow. Their goal is to “take key elements of the Nightingale story and legacy and bring fresh analyses from leading scholars and thinkers in the field” (p. 5), and in this the volume succeeds.

The first essay, by Sioban Nelson, titled “The Nightingale Imperative,” examines the icon that Nightingale became in diverse cultures and eras, far beyond her Victorian identity and context, illustrating the “malleability of her story to fit multiple audiences and political agendas” (p. 11). Nelson ponders how and why Nightingale continues to inspire nurses from around the world since she is so identified with the British colonial endeavor. While acknowledging that Nightingale’s reputation has had its ups and downs over the past century, the author concludes that “the Nightingale story continues to act as a talisman for respectability and feminine power” (p. 27).

The second essay, by Carol Helmstadter, “Navigating the Political Straits in the Crimean War,” puts a very human face on the Nightingale icon. The author details the numerous interpersonal conflicts Nightingale experienced with politicians, religious superiors, nurses, military leaders, and even friends during her service in the military hospitals of the Crimean War. Without rushing to judgment as modern critics often do, the author contextualizes Nightingale’s decisions and actions within the political, social, and religious climates of her day, and indeed gives the reader an appreciation for the numerous and complex obstacles Nightingale faced on a variety of fronts.

The third essay, “The Dream of Nursing the Empire,” by Judith Godden, presents a harsher critique of Nightingale’s behavior and character by examining her relationships with Lucy Osburn, who attempted to establish Nightingale nursing in Australia, and Maria Machin, who attempted to do likewise in Canada. While both women ultimately failed in their respective endeavors, Nightingale withdrew her support for Osburn, while maintaining unflinching support and effusive affection for Machin. The difference in Nightingale’s response to these two women is indeed stark and perhaps startling, although not without explanation, which the author attempts to provide. In part Godden subscribes to conclusions drawn by Nightingale “iconoclasts” Monica Baly and Hugh Small, whose interpretations are vigorously challenged subsequently in the fifth essay, by Lynn McDonald (see below).

In the fourth essay, “Rhetoric and Reality in America,” Joan E. Lynaugh examines the origins and chronology of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century nursing in the United States before and after the advent of the Nightingale school. The reader is introduced to another nursing icon, Alice Fisher, a Nightingale nurse sent to Philadelphia in 1885 to reform nursing there. Lynaugh suggests that in order for Fisher to institute change, she had to adapt the Nightingale model to [End Page 688] suit the American context. While acknowledging Nightingale’s iconic status in American nursing, evidenced particularly by the “Florence Nightingale Pledge,” composed in Detroit in 1893, she nevertheless argues that American nursing ultimately developed in ways quite at odds with Nightingale’s philosophy.

The fifth essay, “Mythologizing and De-Mythologizing,” was authored by Lynn McDonald of the University of Guelph, who for over a decade has served as the general editor of the Collected Works of Florence Nightingale (Wilfrid Laurier...

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