The Ladybird series of non-fiction children’s books printed in the 1950s-1970s are iconic but will be unfamiliar to Gen Z readers. One Ladybird book featured Florence Nightingale. This 50-page book with brightly coloured pictures was everywhere at the time, in people’s homes, schools and public waiting places. It was extremely impactful in bringing Nightingale’s story to children and their parents. 

The book was hugely powerful in reinforcing Nightingale’s image as the ‘Lady with the Lamp’ with this image appearing twice in the book including on the front cover. Authored by playwright Lawrence du Garde Peach, the book was written as an engaging story for children, or rather for girls, in a series called Adventures in History. Women are under-represented in history, and this book series reflects that imbalance. Only two of the 19 books in the first Ladybird Adventure Series focused on women, the other was Queen Eliazbeth I. Whilst the series included the story of ‘Stone Age Man in Britain,’ stories of other wartime nurses such as Agnes Reston (Peninsular War), Mary Seacole (Crimean War) and Edith Cavell (World War 1) don’t make the cut.

The Ladybird book oversimplifies and romanticises Nightingale’s story, reflecting the attitudes of 1950s Britain when it was written. The text indicates many of the nurses Nightingale interviewed to go to the Crimea with her could not be selected as they did not conform to the standards she considered essential for a good nurse. Her standards reflected what it meant to be a woman in a middle- or upper-class family at that time. Many women from less well-off families would fall short of her standards of womanhood and were, according to the book, considered ‘rough.’

The book also reports that Nightingale considered many of the nurses she interviewed as ‘ignorant’ and ‘untrained’. This could simply mean they had trained or worked at the ‘wrong’ hospitals. Nightingale had a hospital hierarchy. Top of the hierarchy were the voluntary hospitals like St Thomas, Barts and Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary. Bottom of the hierarchy were poor law or provincial hospitals. Nightingale would dismiss the work of nurses from such hospitals, usually nurses from poorer families, as being inadequate from her perspective. 

The book also presents a 1950s imagery of women. Today, the book’s pictures of Nightingale would be considered filtered. She is pretty and perfectly presented throughout. She and the other nurses pictured are all young and with such tiny waists it’s a wonder they could breathe. It’s unclear whether this book’s message is that nursing welcomes attractive, tiny-waisted women or that becoming a nurse makes women more womanly, increasing their societal value. There is no doubt, however, about the book’s message - nursing is young women’s work. A message that unfortunately, for the profession has been long-standing and damaging, preventing more men from considering entering the profession.