Paper: Florence Nightingale and J.S. Mill Debate Women's Rights

EVELYN L. PUGH

"In Florence Nightingale's correspondence a series of letters to and from
J.S. Mill treat a different subject than her usual correspondence with
government officials, health and sanitation reformers, and hospital
administrators in many parts of the world. Although it was never her
intention when she initiated the exchange of letters, she and Mill quickly
became involved in a controversy concerning the role of women.

Interwoven with some religious and philosophical matters, the
Nightingale-Mill correspondence which falls into two periods, 1860 and
1867, is essentially a debate on women's rights. One debate concerns
terminology and hinges on the entire validity of the question of publicity
for the women's movement, then in its infancy, as well as the opening of
the medical profession to women. The other focuses on differing percep-
tions of the role of women in political action. The exchange never became
public during the lifetime of the participants, emerging with little notice
only in the twentieth century with the complete publication of their
correspondence in the journal Hospitals in 1936.¹"

  Self - INDIVIDUAL - Person

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 INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC -----------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

SOCIOLOGY  :   POLITICAL 

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Community - Group - Population

thought belief logic, philosophy, ethics 'duty' dichotomy of thought	action active-passive medicine scientific progress 'professions' theory of feminism
social and economic history social progress role expectations publicity public awareness	politics nascent political movement women's rights law 'duty'

 

¹"Florence Nightingale as a Leader in the Religious and Civic thought of her Times,"
Hospitals, X (July, 1936), 78-84. There are a total often letters, five from each, in the correspon-
dence. Three of Mill's letters to Nightingale, with some omissions and two of them identified
only as "To a Correspondent," were published in Hugh S. R. Elliot, Letters of John Stuart Mill,
(London, 1910). Some of her letters to him with portions of his replies were published in Sir
Edward Cook's official biography, Life of Florence Nightingale, (London, 1913). (The edition of
Cook used in this essay is the 1914 printing).

Pugh, E. L. (1982). Florence Nightingale and J.S. Mill Debate Women’s Rights. Journal of British Studies, 21(2), 118–138. http://www.jstor.org/stable/175536