The facts might surprise you!
Mary Seacole set up her own independent business, called the British Hotel, on the edge of the battlefields on the Crimean Peninsula.
The business sold food and beverages to soldiers in order to fund medical treatment for the wounded. Mary treated soldiers from both sides of the conflict, and was often seen on the battlefields after skirmishes helping the wounded and giving comfort to the dying. (Source: National Geographic)
Florence Nightingale was appointed to lead a team of nurses at the Barrack Hospital, located across the Black Sea in Constantinople (what is now Istanbul, Turkiye).
Before she arrived, conditions at the hospital were frightful—the hospital had been built on a cesspool, and soldiers were dying from infections like cholera and typhoid due to contaminated water and filthy bedding.
Florence turned it all around, organising teams to scrub down the hospital top to bottom. She also made vast improvements in other areas of hospital administration, such as improving food, laundry, and entertainment for patients. Her 830-page report about her experiences in Crimea sparked a revolution for military hospital administration in Britain. (Source: History.com)
There are more ways that place impacted the lives of these women.
Mary Seacole was born in Jamaica (which was a British colony at the time). She travelled a lot, getting both business and nursing experience, particularly in Panama, where she served the gold miners and treated cholera patients during the 1852 outbreak.
It's unknown whether she ever received any formal training, but her mother was a Jamaican nurse and healer, and likely taught Mary a lot of what she knew. On hearing of the Crimean War, Mary applied to be part of Florence Nightingale's team of nurses, but was rejected. This was possibly because her field experiences weren't recognised by officials, though Mary suspected race was a factor, writing in her memoirs, "Did these ladies shrink from accepting my aid because my blood flowed beneath a somewhat duskier skin than theirs?"
Florence Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy (on her parents' extended honeymoon), and grew up on her family's estate in Derbyshire, England.
She had early experiences in nursing by administering to the sick in the neighbouring village. Her family did not approve, and forbade her to pursue the career any further. But Florence saw nursing as a divine calling, and at the age of 24, enrolled as a student at the Lutheran Hospital of Pastor Fliedner in Kaiserwerth, Germany, returning to England a few years later to work in a hospital in London, where she greatly improved hygiene practices and was promoted to superintendant after only a year.
