Women During The Civil War

The contents of this book is a fascinating study over Jessie Daniel Ames, who was a southern woman who played major roles in several local social movements between the two world wars- as the very first President of the Texas league of woman voters, leader in the Texas Equal Suffrage Association, Director of Woman’s Work for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation in the 1920’s, and following that decade as the head of the association of southern Woman for the prevention of Lynching (ASWPL).

After studying women and gender history in early America for the past semester, my views about American history have changed tremendously. Having very little prior experience with history, I had many assumptions and preconceived notions from high school history classes. Women were never even mentioned in my previous learning about U.S. history, so I assumed they took on unimportant roles and had little, if any, impact on shaping our country’s history. However, after this semester of delving deeply into the women of early America, I could not have been more incorrect. Although they were not typically in the public realm, we cannot fully understand history without studying women. The following readings uncovered the roles of women in the private sphere and were crucial to my new understanding of the importance of women in American history by bringing women to the forefront.

“Revolutionary Mothers Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence,” is a book written by Carol Berkin. In this writing, Berkin goes into detail on the important role women of the 1600s-1700s took place during the Home Front War. Berkin argues that it wasn’t just the men who fought for independence, but women fought for freedom as well. The book describes the roles that different women faced, the challenges women faced, and women’s capabilities during the war.

Through Women’s Eyes by Ellen Carol DuBois and Lynn Dumenil addresses American History from 1865 until present day. The third edition of this textbook includes visual and primary sources over several centuries. I used this textbook in a history course, “Women in the United States, 1890 – Present;” I found the textbook to be engaging, helpful, and useful throughout the course. The way in which in the information was presented allowed me to learn, assess, and analyze the difficulties women faced.

America has changed over the years in a multitude of way. Women have touched it all, everything from humanities to arts to science to government. When studying history, students usually learn about the fights the men have fought; women are often overlooked. This paper is dedicated to learning about women and their fight to create history; this paper is dedicated to learning about the struggles women have faced that have been overlooked by those that dictate what a history book is supposed to contain. Women's history is just as important as men's history, therefore, this paper will contain just a small portion of history made by two important women.

“Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence” is neither a romantic tale nor an attempt to revise traditional history by making women the pivotal players in war for independence. It does not tell one woman’s story, but many, and not all of those stories end in victory or triumph. The book examines a revolution, or war, that is blurred between the battlefield and the home front. It views the struggle of war through the eyes of women who found themselves willingly and unwillingly, at the center of a prolonged violent conflict.

The archival resources that I found are from historians who have studied the role of women in the Civil War. The role of women in the Civil War have been both on the home-front and on the war front. During the time of the War Between the States, women took it upon themselves to not only support the men and the cause, but to become soldiers themselves. Women also became involved in politics and nursing the wounded. The archives to support my topic, Women in the Civil War, provide evidence of how women preserved in such a turbulent time in our nation’s history.

The Civil War brought about change in more ways than one affecting the lifestyle and roles of Women, slaves, and freed blacks. As the men were out fighting the war, their wives took on more taunting role and responsibility. Because their husbands were out fighting the war those affects changed the lifestyle of the domesticated housewives causing them to transition into the roles of their husbands. Roles like managing the family business, farming, and maintaining the family was just a peek of there duties. Women regardless of race and gender moved into more demanding and physical roles i.e., cooks, nurses, seamstress, farming, advocates for finances and medical supplies to support Solders.

The American Civil War started in 1861 and took place for a few days shy of four years. At this point in time, the men and young men of age took to the battlefield while women and children sat at home. However, the initial question arises: why weren’t women allowed to fight in the first place? More than anything it was just simply the signs of the times. Women were not perceived as equals in any way, shape, or stretch of imagination during this period of time. Women were mostly

For a long time, the premise of war was that men would go to war while women stayed home to take care of the children and the towns that were left behind. As a consequence, women are often left out of the main narratives of war. Interestingly, historians looking specifically at women’s effects on the Civil War effort have found that women not only worked indirectly for the war effort in their towns to support the war by making uniforms and ammunition and that some even participated directly in the war by disguising themselves and battling on the front or by acting as spies for both the Union and the South.

Women cannot fight, perform manual labor and certainly cannot handle the rigors of war. This fact has been handed down to us since the beginning of time, so it must be true, right? The Civil War and the years leading up to it are very much like other times of war. Men are the dominate force in policy, finance and rights. Women are fighting for justice, equality and a say in the country that they call home. Women are regularly oppressed and looked down upon, yet when the country is in turmoil they rise to the challenge.

The role of women during the Civil War is one that is often misinterpreted and misunderstood. Traditionally, women were expected to either keep their homes while their husbands were away. If anything, they were able to work as nurses. However, many women would defy these standards. Defying stereotypes, these women would take on jobs that no one had dared take on before. Women were expected to be proper and maintain the house while men were gone. The women of the Civil War would challenge these stereotypes in a large way, defying everything that was seen as “the norm”. Although women were not legally allowed to participate in combat during the Civil War, they still made significant contributions on and off the battlefield, and without these contributions the war would have been very different.

Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War provides a look into the rarely discussed topic of women in the South during the time of the Civil War. While other authors consider the implications of slavery or military tactics from the viewpoint of men, Faust offers a refreshing take on these subjects along with others to construct a narrative that examines the role of women from a gender and class standpoint. Additionally, Faust suggests that women’s roles within the framework of war created new functions in their everyday lives. While the author does talk about the subject of women, many of her points are familiar as they are comparable to other books.

After four years of seemingly endless battle between a divided nation, more than 600,000 people were killed. These lives, however, were not given in vain. Had it not been for the American Civil War, abolition may not have been carried out. The nation might have remained divided. Women might have remained confined to their roles as the "homemakers." Although the Civil War was fought in hopes of preserving the nation and ridding it of slavery, another war raged on within the depths of this war--the women's war. Serving as nurses both in the hospital and on the battlefields, women came to know a whole

It is an accepted convention that the Civil War was a man’s fight, but to the women in that time period, it was not. Many women sacrificed their lives to fight for their family and for their country. The Civil War is symbolic in American history because it shaped society, as we know it today, “Free of slavery”. During the Civil War, women were mostly confined to the domestic sphere and were not allowed to serve in combat. Researchers have noted that women did indeed disguise themselves as men just to fight. During this time period, women felt strongly about staying in their courters