This book was an interesting reflection. Before the war, we were living with Victorian ideas of gender. Women were frail, emotional, self-sacrificing, and nurturing. They were seen as adept at managing the home sphere, but inept in the larger business or world sphere.
When the war came along, patriotic women wanted to help. Many wanted to aid the sick and wounded as nurses, or collect and distribute supplies, which the men fought women doing, but finally HAD to accept them. Some women took arms, and/or wore non-traditional clothing, which society just couldn't accept. (That's why you never heard about them - the writers after the war ignored or put them down.) By a decade after the war, nursing became recognized as a needed profession, and it was accepted for women. Some women who fought gender limitations during the war went on to fight for women's sufferage and finally got the vote for women.
IMO this is a good book for skimming.
Read the introduction. Then maybe skim the chapters about specific women (Sophronia Bucklin, Annie Wittenmyer, and Mary Walker), supplementing with a briefer internet article. Then read the conclusion.
As a Southerner, the book didn't insult me until the conclusion. It kept saying NORTHERN women did this and that, when I know from family stories that SOUTHERN women also nursed the sick and wounded, distributed medical supplies, and fought alongside the men to protect their homes. They felt very patriotic about states rights, and their fallen soldiers! They were being invaded and their homes and crops burned and livestock killed, and they didn't just sit around and fan themselves!!!
When the war came along, patriotic women wanted to help. Many wanted to aid the sick and wounded as nurses, or collect and distribute supplies, which the men fought women doing, but finally HAD to accept them. Some women took arms, and/or wore non-traditional clothing, which society just couldn't accept. (That's why you never heard about them - the writers after the war ignored or put them down.) By a decade after the war, nursing became recognized as a needed profession, and it was accepted for women. Some women who fought gender limitations during the war went on to fight for women's sufferage and finally got the vote for women.
IMO this is a good book for skimming.
Read the introduction. Then maybe skim the chapters about specific women (Sophronia Bucklin, Annie Wittenmyer, and Mary Walker), supplementing with a briefer internet article. Then read the conclusion.As a Southerner, the book didn't insult me until the conclusion. It kept saying NORTHERN women did this and that, when I know from family stories that SOUTHERN women also nursed the sick and wounded, distributed medical supplies, and fought alongside the men to protect their homes. They felt very patriotic about states rights, and their fallen soldiers! They were being invaded and their homes and crops burned and livestock killed, and they didn't just sit around and fan themselves!!!