The Modern Woman as Global Exemplar, Part II: Florence Nightingale and a Transnational Gendered Modernity

Abstract

AbstractThis essay examines the late 19th‐century/early 20th‐century global process of cooptation and incorporation of foreign moral exemplars into local compendia of “Women Worthies.” Presenting a case study of the early 20th‐century adoption of Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) as a new Woman Worthy in China, Egypt, and the Anglo‐American sphere, I investigate the introduction of previously unknown female figures into local collections of biographies of eminent women. My work suggests new lines of research into global processes of continuity and change, and posits socio‐cultural commonplaces of the early “global modern” revealed by these transnational stories and their ubiquity. In investigating the oft‐told story of Florence Nightingale, this paper uncovers the intersection between transnational processes of gender definition and the local constitution of a global, gendered modernity and calls for similar studies in other world areas.