Florence Nightingale Exhibit at HHS
The Many Worlds of Florence Nightingale: An Exhibit Commemorating the Centennial of Her Death Teaching & Learning Center Hammer Health Sciences Center, Lower Level 2
Sept. 15 - Dec. 22, 2010
A century ago this year, Florence Nightingale died at age 90. Nurse, war hero, educator, public health reformer, and spiritual seeker, Nightingale surmounted the constricted role assigned to Victorian upper-class women to become internationally famous for her work as a nurse. She remains a figure of veneration to millions.
The Columbia Health Sciences Library is commemorating this anniversary with an exhibit showcasing the many different facets of Nightingale's life. On display are original letters, contemporary photographs and prints, and first editions of many of her books. Highlights include the Nightingale family bible with Florence's signature on the title page of the New Testament; an inscribed copy of the first edition of her groundbreaking "Notes on Nursing" (1860); a manuscript of "To Florence Nightingale of England" by the American poet John Greenleaf Whittier; and a fragment of a diary kept by Nightingale when she visited the battlefield of Balaclava during the Crimean War.
All items in the exhibit are drawn from the Auchincloss Florence Nightingale Collection, one of the greatest collections of materials relating to Nightingale to be found in North America. Created by Dr. Hugh Auchincloss (1878-1947), Professor of Clinical Surgery at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the collection was presented by him to the Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing, now the Columbia University School of Nursing, in May 1932.
The Auchincloss Florence Nightingale Collection holds more than 250 letters by her; several dozen letters to her; books she wrote or owned; books about her; and prints, photographs, and drawings. Since 1979, it has been housed in the Health Sciences Library's Archives & Special Collections. More information about the collection can be found online here.
The exhibit, in the Teaching & Learning Center on Lower Level 2 of the Hammer Health Sciences Center, is open to members of the Columbia University Medical Center community. A full description of the exhibit can be found online here.