FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE 1820-1910

Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy. During her life, Florence was often referred to as "The Lady with the Lamp." Florence was a British nurse, statistician and social reformer who was the foundational philosopher of modern nursing.

She was put in charge of nursing British and allied soldiers in Turkey during the Crimean War, spending many hours in the wards and doing her night rounds.

Her efforts to 'formalize' nursing education led her to establish the first scientifically based nursing school --- The Nightingale School of Nursing --- at St.Thomas' Hospital in London, which opened in 1860. Florence was also instrumental in setting up training for midwives and nurses in the Workhouse infirmaries.

                   A Truly Inspiring Woman !
              A GOOD NURSING COURSE
(if you are interested in studying nursing, the above link "A GOOD NURSING COURSE" is a  good place to start)

HELEN KELLER 1880-1968

Helen Adams Keller was born on 27th June 1880. At the age of 19 months old, Helen was afflicted with an illness (possibly scarlet fever) which left her deaf and blind. At 6 years old, Helen was examined by Alexander Graham Bell who sent her a 20 year old teacher, Anne Sullivan (Macy), from the Perkins Institution for the Blind (in Boston). Within months, Helen had learned to feel objects and to associate them with words spelled out by finger signals and her palm, to read sentences by feeling raised words on cardboard, and to make her own sentences by arranging words in a frame.

During 1888-1890, Helen spent winters at the Perkins Institution learning braille. She learned to speak under Sarah Fuller of the Horace Mann School for the Deaf (also in Boston). Helen also learned to lip-read by placing her fingers on the lips and throat of the speaker while the words were simultaneously spelled out to her. After going to school, Helen won admission to Radcliffe College in 1900 and graduated with distinction, she did not let her deafness or blindness stop her!

Helen developed skills never approached by any similarly disabled person.

In 1913, Helen began lecturing (with the aid of an interpreter), primarily on behalf of the American Foundation for the Blind, for which she later established a $2 million endowment fund, and her lecture tours took her several times around the world. Helen's efforts to improve the treatment of  the deaf and blind were influential in removing the disabled from assylums.

Helen Keller was a truly amazing and remarkable woman.

DO NOT STAND AT MY GRAVE AND WEEP is a beautiful set of poems to uplift the soul when you have lost a loved one. I can just imagine Helen saying this, as she was such a strong character.

BEATRIX POTTER

Helen Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) was born into the upper class, which enabled her the freedom to indulge in her love for writing and drawing. The family would go on long holidays to the countryside in Scotland, where Beatrix could follow her imagination, often bringing home little animals like mice, rabbits and birds.

Her picture book "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" was published in 1902, with 8,000 copies selling out very quickly. By 1905, six of her books had been published and with the profits, Beatrix bought her first farm, Hill Top Farm, in the Lake District. 

Her future husband, Norman Warne, died and Beatrix "threw"herself into running her farm and worked on more of her books. In all, Beatrix Potter wrote 30 books, the best known being her 23 children's tales.

1920's

LADIES OF NOTE

Dorothea Dix (1802-1887) worked to build adequate hospitals and asylums for the mentally ill.

Josephine Butler (1828-1906) campaigned for the rights of sex workers and the age of consent laws.

Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928) in 1903 formed the "WSPU" --- "the Women's Social and Political Union."

Marie Stopes (1880-1958) began researching her controversial book "Married Love" on sexual pleasure and birth control.