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
|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES
HUMANISTIC ----------------------------------- MECHANISTIC
SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL
|
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'
|
"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
orcid.org/0000-0002-0192-8965
