Born into Victorian Britain's elite, a brilliant teenager decided to devote her life to the indigent sick by becoming a nurse. Florence's family, especially her mother opposed the decision. Nightingale insisted on the right to fulfill her dream. Catapulted into the Crimean war, she brought order to the chaos of British military hospitals. But she could never forget her patients, that broken army of bloody, lice-infested skeletons. She focused all her faculties on preventing another Crimean calamity. Hygienic army installations, sanitation for India, and creation of modern nursing owe much to Nightingale. To Victorians, she personified their ideal of nurturing female. By creating a career for women that empowered them with economic independence, Florence Nightingale stands among the founders of modern feminism.