Longfellow, Tiffany, Nathaniel Currier (Currier & Ives),
The American Red Cross and Florence Nightingale

Santa Filomena
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Whene'er a noble deed is wrought,
Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts, in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise.

The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares
Out of all meaner cares.

Honor to those whose words or deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs,
And by their overflow
Raise us from what is low!

Thus thought I, as by night I read
Of the great army of the dead,
The trenches cold and damp,
The starved and frozen camp,--

The wounded from the battle-plain,
In dreary hospitals of pain,
The cheerless corridors,
The cold and stony floors.

Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom,
And flit from room to room.

And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow, as it falls
Upon the darkening walls.

As if a door in heaven should be
Opened and then closed suddenly,
The vision came and went,
The light shone and was spent.

On England's annals, through the long
Hereafter of her speech and song,
That light its rays shall cast
From portals of the past.

A Lady with a Lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood.

Nor even shall be wanting here
The palm, the lily, and the spear,
The symbols that of yore
Saint Filomena bore.

Santa Filomena was first published in The Atlantic Monthly magazine in the very first issue, November 1857

Nathaniel Currier
N. Currier 1838-1856 152 Nassau Street Cor. Spruce

Nathaniel Currier, was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts on March 27, 1813. At the age of 15, he apprenticed in the Boston print shop of William and John Pendleton, where he was taught the art of lithography by Pendleton’s chief printer Dubois.

In 1833, Nathaniel left Pendleton’s and moved to Philadelphia to work with M.E.D. Brown. In 1834, Nathaniel moved to New York City to rejoin his mentor John Pendleton, who was operating a shop at 137 Broadway. That same year Currier and another printer, Stodart, formed a partnership buying Pendleton’s New York business.

This new firm of Currier & Stodart was a job printing shop handling commercial orders including music sheets. In 1835, Stodart and Currier dissolved their partnership. Currier, now on his own,. went into business with his new firm ‘N. Currier, Lithographer’ located at 1 Wall Street which continued as a job shop.

Nathaniel experimented with portraits, disaster scenes and memorial prints, including a tribute to President William Henry Harrison who in 1841died in office. "Ruins of the Planter’s Hotel, New Orleans" is believed to be Currier’s earliest disaster print. In 1840 another disaster print "Awful Conflagration of the Steamboat Lexington" which was published in the "New York Sun" launched his firm into the spot light.

In 1852, Currier hired James Merritt Ives, brother in law of Nathaniel’s brother Charles, as a full time bookkeeper. James was born in 1824 and a native New Yorker, self-trained artist and a professional bookkeeper. He improved and modernized the bookkeeping methods, reorganized the filing system and with his artistic skills streamlined the firm’s production methods. In 1857, Nathaniel made him a full partner and the firm’s general manager. All prints published from this period on carried the new name of the firm Currier & Ives.

Currier & Ives had an uncommon flair for gauging the people’s interests. Over the years their selection of prints broaden to include almost every subject. Touting themselves as "Publishers of Cheap and Popular Pictures," Currier and Ives sold prints ranging from 20 cents to $4, depending on the size and subject. They sold retail as well as wholesale, establishing outlets in cities across the country and in London.

Nathaniel Currier retired in 1880, and turned his share of the firm over to his son Edward West Currier. Nathaniel died eight years later at his summer home in Amesbury, Massachusetts. James Merritt Ives remained active in the firm until his death in 1895. He willed his share of the firm to his eldest son Chauncey Ives.

In 1902, Edward Currier sold his share of the firm to Chauncey Ives. In 1907, Chauncey sold the firm to one of his employees, Daniel W. Logan. Unable to continue due to health problems Mr. Logan was forced to liquidate the firm in late 1907.

N. Currier 152 Nassau Street Cor. Spruce
Years at this location:1838-1856

Tiffany Stained Glass windows
One of the signature features of the National Headquarters building of the American Red Cross inspired by Longfellow's poem, Santa Filomena.

The American Red Cross names the poem and stained glass windows as having been inspired by Florence Nightingale.  "Miss Mabel T. Boardman, a prominent early 20th century leader and secretary of the American Red Cross for many years, suggested the idea for the windows to the Women's Relief Corps of the North and the United Daughters of the Confederacy, two organizations of Civil War women."¹

In an e-mail with the suggestion that Miss. Boardman was possibly unaware of Saint Philomena, The American Red Cross Museum, Washington, DC, responded, "I think Miss Boardman was very much aware of Saint Philomena, Longfellow’s poem, and Florence Nightingale.

Longfellow wrote his poem in 1857, the year after the Crimean War ended. Nightingale had earned her reputation during that war and may have been his inspiration.

Miss Boardman was one of the people who opposed Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, in the early 1900s. Miss Boardman became a very strong leader of the American Red Cross following Barton’s resignation in 1904 and allegedly there remained a resentment between the two long after Barton died.

According to legend, some 30 years earlier before Barton’s resignation, Barton, the “Angel of the Battlefield” or the “Florence Nightingale of America,” and Nightingale were staying about 6 blocks from each other in London. The story has it that they avoided meeting each other because of their jealousy of each other’s reputation.

It makes an interesting story that Barton’s name and likeness has no permanent place in the National Headquarters building but an image, inspired by Florence Nightingale, is one of the signature features of the building. We may never know the absolute truth, but it makes one wonder if Miss Boardman didn’t think that the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

The mystery may never be solved, however two facts remain, the poem was named Santa Filomena, not Florence Nighingale and the Tiffany stained glass window bears both the anchor (a symbol most usually associated with Saint Philomena) and a red cross.

Regardless of the true intent of Longfellow, Tiffany and Miss Boardman, the association with both Florence Nightingale and Saint Philomena has high honor.

Florence Nightingale and The Crimean War
In March 1854 Britain, France and Turkey declared war on Russia. The allies defeated the Russians at the battle of the Alma in September but reports in The Times criticized the British medical facilities for the wounded. In response, Sidney Herbert, the Minister at War, who knew Florence Nightingale socially and through her work at Harley Street, appointed her to oversee the introduction of female nurses into the military hospitals in Turkey. On 4 November 1854, Florence Nightingale arrived at the Barrack Hospital in Scutari, a suburb on the Asian side of Constantinople, with the party of 38 nurses. Initially the doctors did not want the nurses there and did not ask for their help, but within ten days fresh casualties arrived from the battle of Inkermann and the nurses were fully stretched.

The 'Lady-in-Chief', as Florence was called, wrote home on behalf of the soldiers. She acted as a banker, sending the men's wages home to their families, and introduced reading rooms to the hospital. In return she gained the undying respect of the British soldiers. The introduction of female nurses to the military hospitals was an outstanding success, and to show the nation's gratitude for Florence Nightingale's hard work a public subscription was organized in November 1855. The money collected was to enable Florence Nightingale to continue her reform of nursing in the civil hospitals of Britain.

When Florence Nightingale returned from the Crimean War in August 1856, four months after the peace treaty was signed, she hid herself away from the public's attention. In November 1856 Miss Nightingale took a hotel room in London which became the centre for the campaign for a Royal Commission to investigate the health of the British Army. When Sidney Herbert was appointed chairman, she continued as a driving force behind the scenes.

For her contribution to Army statistics and comparative hospital statistics in 1860 Florence Nightingale became the first woman to be elected a fellow of the Statistical Society. In 1865 she settled at 10 South Street, Mayfair, in the West End of London and apart from occasional visits to Embley, Lea Hurst and to her sister at Claydon House she lived there until her death.

Although Florence Nightingale was bedridden for many years, she campaigned tirelessly to improve health standards, publishing 200 books, reports and pamphlets. In recognition of her hard work Queen Victoria awarded Miss Nightingale the Royal Red Cross in 1883. In her old age she received many honours, including the Order of Merit (1907), becoming the first woman to receive it. Florence Nightingale died at home at the age of 90 on 13 August 1910 and, according to her wishes, she was buried at St Margaret's, East Wellow, near her parent's home, Embley Park in Hampshire. Florence Nightingale's farsighted reforms have influenced the nature of modern health care and her writings continue to be a resource for nurses, health managers and planners.²