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Letters, documents, and printed material documenting the activities of the Florence Nightingale Fund, a national fundraising effort to honor the work of Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War. It led to the creation in 1860 of the first modern school of nursing at St. Thomas’s Hospital, London. The records form part of the Auchincloss Florence Nightingale Collection.
History and Biography
The Florence Nightingale Fund was a national fundraising effort that led to the creation in 1860 of the first modern school of nursing at St. Thomas’s Hospital, London.
It was a creation of a group led by author Anna Maria Hall, her husband, journalist Samuel Carter Hall and statesman Sir Sidney Herbert and his wife, writer and prominent social figure Elizabeth Herbert, who in 1855 organized a public subscription to create a testament to Britain’s appreciation for Florence Nightingale’s service to the nation during the Crimean War. In 1857, a committee was appointed to manage the fund. By 1859, the amount collected stood at 45,000 British pounds, at which time the funds were turned over to Nightingale, who used the monies to start a nurses’ training school at St. Thomas’s Hospital in London, now known as the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery.
Organization
The collection is generally arranged alphabetically by surname and then chronologically, though there are inconsistencies.
The Florence Nightingale Fund Records document the activities of the Nightingale Fund and include letters, documents, and printed material. There are approximately 321 letters from over 300 individuals, including Nightingale’s sister, Frances Parthenope (Lady Verney), and from her mother, Frances Nightingale, as well as correspondence from every strata of British and Irish society in response to Fund solicitations. Also included are copies of speeches given at meetings organized by the Fund and a small quantity of materials created by persons corresponding with the Fund that are unrelated to the Fund itself.
Subject Headings and Related Records
Administrative Information
Transferred in 1979 by Presbyterian Hospital to the Columbia University Health Sciences Library on a long-term loan basis, the Auchincloss Florence Nightingale Collection is still owned by Presbyterian’s successor institution, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.
Custodial History: Hugh Auchincloss, professor of surgery at Columbia University and an attending surgeon at Presbyterian Hospital, donated a substantial number of Florence Nightingale letters to the Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing (later the Columbia University School of Nursing) in 1932 in memory of his mother, Maria Sloan Auchincloss, on the graduation of his daughter, Maria Sloan Auchincloss, from the School of Nursing. Additional materials were donated by him, his family, and friends of the School of Nursing into the 1950s. The letters and documents of the Nightingale Fund were presented by Auchincloss to the School of Nursing on Oct. 22, 1940.
The records were transcribed in 1956 by students at the Columbia University School of Nursing and then housed in 3 scrapbooks using pressure-sensitive tape. In 2004-05, conservation work funded by the Columbia University-Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing Alumni Association removed the letters from the volumes and rehoused them in acid-free folders in three portfolio boxes. The residue from the tape was also removed, though staining remains. In 2014, the transcriptions were edited and corrected and a calendar created by Jennifer McGillan, Archivist. At that time, she also identified many of the correspondents.