The Crimean War was the first major war to be photographed. The camera was still a fairly new invention, but they had become advanced and light enough that cameras could be used on the battlefield. For the first time, people not at the battlefield could see graphic and unromanticized images of the wounded and dead. The process allowing photographs to be printed in newspapers had not yet been developed. However, special engravers would copy the photographs by hand so they could be printed. William Russel, a reporter for the London Times neswpaper, was the first modern war correspondent despatching reports from the battlefield via telegraph.

In terms of information technology and news coverage, the Crimean War can be seen as the first modern war.

Florence Nightingale, (1820-1910) shown here, became famous for her medical care of the sick and wounded soldiers during the war. She not only invented the modern nursing profession, but she also marks the introduction of women into the medical profession. Aside from traditional herbal medicine where women had often been healers, or in the role of midwife, women had been excluded from medicine. Although most nurses today are women, before Florence Nightingale this was very unusual.

Both doctors and nurses were usually men.