How Did Nursing Change Social Roles of Northern Women During the Civil War?

Nursing & Women's Roles Pre-and-Post Civil War

The student focusing on 19th century history in the United States in most cases studies the Civil War and the causes that led to the war. But there are a number of very important aspects to 19th century American history that relate to women's roles, including nursing and volunteering to help the war wounded and others in need of care. This paper delves into the role nurses played in the Civil War (both Caucasian and Black nurses), the way in which the Civil War changed the woman's work roles, the role women (both Black and Caucasian) played before, during, and after the war, and the terrible injustices thrust on women of color in a number of instances throughout the 19th century.

The Woman's role in America prior to the Civil War

"A woman's work is never done," is an old maxim but it has never become out of date; indeed, because it has more than a ring of truth to it, it has been used often in the 217 years since Martha Moore Ballard penned it in her journal one November night around midnight in 1795 (Cott, 1997, p. 19). Author Nancy Cott uses Ballard's life and times -- a resident of Augusta, Maine -- as an example of the productivity and altruism that was typical of many women whose vocation was as a "domestic manufacturer" on a working farm (Cott, 19).

To wit, Ballard "…baked, pickled and preserved, spun and sewed, made soap and dipped candles" and in addition to all that, Ballard was a "trusted healer and midwife"; she delivered "…more than a thousand babies" as well (Cott, 19). This was not an "atypical" women in the waning days of the late 18th century, Cott explains.

If one is looking for any changes in a woman's role between 1780 and 1835, Cott writes, there were some, but basically women were considered "…adjunct and secondary to men in economic life" (20). Women were noted for their "industry" but men were "providing"; what sense would it have made for a woman to have economic ambitions, given that there were "legal obstacles in the way of women's entrepreneurship"? (Cott, 21).

In Mary Tucker's diary (1802) she said marriage could prove to be "…a galling chain" for those unfortunate women who "married from proper motives" but did not anticipate the "bondage…" (Cott, 77). Catherine Sedgwick (1802) had pity for her sister Frances, who had married and now must "accede to her husband's disastrous financial decisions," Cott reports on page 77. Sedgwick wrote that her sister wasn't given the right to object or consent to her husband's investments and spending, but she was stuck in a place where "…obedience to his wish" was all she could muster (Cott, 77). Sedgwick writes: "Poor Frances! My heart bleeds for her, when I think to what legal subordination persisted, in combination with romantic love ideals that stressed personal attraction and emotional motivation for both partners…" (Cott, 77-78).

Sedgwick presents in her diary post that -- in the context of her sister's dilemma -- there is an "overwhelming irony" faced by women: they have the right to "choose their bondage" (Cott, 78). Iconic philosopher, author and journalist Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States and studied the social dynamics carefully in the early portion of the 19th century. His take on women's position in relationships is poignant if -- as author Cott contends -- it is not exactly accurate.

Tocqueville wrote that a woman "…voluntarily and freely enters upon this engagement" in full knowledge of her destiny. "She has learned by the use of her independence to surrender it without a struggle and without a murmur when the time comes for making the sacrifice" (Cott quoting Tocqueville, 78). The part of that quote that Cott didn't fully embrace was the supposed independence that a woman had prior to marriage; it just wasn't true, in many cases, that unmarried young women had independence.

Still, Cott goes on to recount the changes in women's roles and the perceptions that the outside world (including males) had about women. By the year 1830, women were not seen so much as "inferior" as they were "different," Cott emphasizes (197). In fact there is a "woman's sphere" in the literature relating to the 19th century; the author breaks the "woman's sphere" down into three parts. The first, roughly between 1820 and 1850, viewed women as "…victims, or prisoners, of an ideology of domesticity that was imposed on them" (197). The second sphere viewed women in a more refined way, observing that "…women made use of the ideology of domesticity for their own purposes" including the chance to be educated, to gain some influence in the society and the community, and even to "…express hostility to men" (Cott, 197).

The third perceives sphere for women was by way of seeing that women were creating a "subculture…that formed a source of strength and identity and afforded supportive sisterly relations" (Cott, 197). The impetus for this third sphere was two-fold: a) women's motives were more progressive and specific in terms of what they wished to become; and b) women were responding forcefully to the "imposition of men's or 'society's wishes" (Cott, 197).

Meanwhile, on a more practical side of the early 19th century, the advice offered to women in The Family Nurse by abolitionist, Indian rights advocate and woman's rights activist Lydia Child is as entertaining today as it was pragmatic in 1837, when the book was published. "Be not afraid of fatigue," Child suggested on page 6. And those "troubled with cold feet" should "dip their feet in cold water, as soon as they are out of bed, all the year round" (Child, 6). The dipping should be done very quickly, then the feet should be "…rubbed with a coarse cloth, or brush, till they glow" (Child, 6).

On page 9 Child recommends that patients suffering from fever be sponged with a solution consisting of a teaspoon of pearl ask, dissolved in a pint of "lukewarm water" and wiped off with a sponge that has been dipped in "warm vinegar and water." That seems very straight forward and proper. But after the vinegar treatment, Child suggests very weak patients with fever will benefit "…by being washed in warm white rum" (9).

While that last advice may seem a bit bizarre by today's standards, some of Child's recommendations border on the blatantly obvious: "If stockings and shoes get wet, change them. It is a mistaken idea that it is healthy to dry them on" (7). Another nurse-related suggestion, which rings true today: "The first and most important duty of the nurse is to follow scrupulously and exactly the directions of the physician… he must be trusted entirely" (Child, 9). Interestingly Child leaves no stone unturned in her scrupulous attention to detail. When someone is ill, it is important to "step lightly and gently" and avoid "creaking shoes" or "rustling garments" and most certainly prevent doors from banging. Certainly the nurses and women tending to the sick in 1837 did not have "3-in-1" oil or WD-40, but they understood how annoying a squeaky door can be; hence on page 10 Child suggests having "hinges and locks oiled."

Why 19th Century Women -- in Many Instances -- were Revered

Barbara Welter presents narrative in the book Locating American Studies: The Evolution of a Discipline that a 19th century woman was judged by four "cardinal virtues" -- "piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity" (Welter, 1999, p. 44). The source of the woman's strength was religion and piety, and in fact when a woman has those "undefined longings" that sweep through the mind and body of "even the most pious young girl" religion acts as a kind of "tranquilizer" for those desires (Welter, 45). The rule of thumb for young women coming of age was: "…it was better to pray than to think" (Welter, 45).

Given the above-mentioned description of what a woman's role was -- her "proper sphere" was her home where she could practice her religion and eschew "intellectual pursuits" -- it is clear why women were discouraged from pursuing educational advancement. "Women were warned not to let their literary or intellectual pursuits take them away from God" (Welter, 46). In essence, the point made in women's publications like The Ladies' Repository, Young Ladies' Literary and Missionary Report, The Young Lady's Friend, Girlhood and Womanhood and The Excellency of the Female Character, was that religion and the obsession with reading the Bible would keep women from straying into carnal thoughts or hopes of becoming educated about the secular world.

On page 46, Welter explains that when a woman in the early 19th century was less than pure (one assumes the author alludes to virginity and to eschewing sensual involvement of any kind) she was "no woman at all, but a member of some lower order." A women even thinking about her loss of purity "…brought tears" and to be found "guilty of such a crime" as an impure act "…brought madness or death," according to the women's magazines during that era (Welter, 46). Thomas Branagan wrote in The Excellency of the Female Character Vindicated that men would "sin and sin again" because they could not help themselves (quoted by Welter, 47). But a woman, Branagan asserted, was "stronger and purer" and had the resolve to resist a man's desire to "…take liberties incompatible with her delicacy" (Welter, 47).

However, if a woman should acquiesce to a man's attempts to engage in sexual activities, Branagan asserted in his book, "You will be left in silent sadness to bewail your credulity, imbecility, duplicity, and premature prostitution" (Welter, 47). The advice given to women in the early 19th century, as presented by Welter on page 62, clearly appears to the 21st century reader as propaganda designed to keep women in subservient situations vis-a-vis their future husbands.

To wit, pastor Samuel Miller's sermon on women listed the duties females are obliged to perform for the husband: a) be a "counselor and friend" to the husband; b) "lighten his cares" on a daily basis; c) "soothe his sorrows"; d) "augment his joys"; e) watch over "his interests" like a "guardian angel"; f) warn him "against danger"; g) comfort him when there are "trials" in his life; and h) "…by her pious, assiduous and attractive deportment, constantly endeavor to render him a more virtuous, more useful, more honorable and more happy" individual (Welter, 62).

The Woman's role in the American Family in the 19th century

Author Carl Degler points out that after the Civil War, for most women their tasks were still domestic. "The primary role of the wife was the care of children and the maintenance of the home" (Degler, 1980, p. 8). The woman did in fact enjoy a greater degree of "influence and autonomy within the family" than the woman of the house did in the 17th century. Still, her role was homemaker albeit she was perceived by society "and [by] herself" as the "moral superior of the husband" (Degler, 8). Those women who were offered opportunities outside the home -- to be detailed later in this paper -- either had special nurses training or were widowed by the bloody war, which took the lives of more than 600,000 people.

Degler presents an example of how a woman really needed permission from her husband to go to work outside the house. Charlena Anderson needed the approval of her husband to leave their home and take a job while he was studying in Germany (Degler, 386). He wrote back that it would be "grand" for her to get a position in a "Normal School" to teach German to English-speaking students. But he added, it would be okay "…even if you did not earn much the first year"; he added that his main worry about his wife leaving the house to work related to the fact that work outside the home "…might impair her health" (Degler, 386).

She replied that it would only be a temporary position, hence he needn't worry that she would want to do this on an ongoing basis; but she mentioned that earning money to help him pay for his expenses while he was studying surely is a good thing. "You need not feel that you are a burden to all of us [by which she meant her parents, for she had no children…] & #8230; We had as soon loan our money to you as to anyone" (Degler, 386).

As an addendum to her note, she mentioned that "…I know I shall get mine again with good interest, won't I? You may say I have loaned you nothing, very true" (Degler, 386). It's not possible to tell if Charlena was making a little in-house joke when she said she had no fear of being paid back, but it could be construed that she was hoping for -- planning for -- some romance when he returned from Germany, which would serve as "good interest" for his wife. In any event, when he returned to the United States Charlena gave up her job and came home.

Degler (388) points to an incident that quite thoroughly explains and portrays the ongoing chauvinistic attitude among the male population just prior to the Civil War. In 1854, writer / editor / publisher Horace Greeley had been hiring women as typesetters in his printing office. But the Typographical Union "attacked him" for hiring women in what had traditionally been a man's job. Greely's rebuttal to those union attacks is a mix of chauvinism and humor.

"Marry them," he wrote, "provide good homes, and earn means of living comfortably, and we'll warrant them never to annoy you thereafter by insisting on spending their days at the printing office setting type" (Degler, 388). As for women who wished for independence from their parents, marriage was "an escape" from the controlling parents. But as Degler points on page 388, the husband might well turn out to be "as great a tyrant as a father" albeit the husband-tyrant was chosen by the woman and the parents she was stuck with through no choosing of her own.

Pulitzer-Prize winner James M. McPherson's book, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, goes into great detail about all the conditions in the South and the North that led to war, but he also discusses wages, trades, and how women were treated who were able to work outside the home in the private sector in the 1840s (most women were expected to stay home and do domestic chores).

The wages of male artisans had been quite high in the mid-1800s, but they plunged in certain occupations due to the "…introduction of new methods or new machines" that could do the work more efficiently and for less money (McPherson, 2003, p. 22). So instead of having to pay artisans what then was considered decent wages, employers hired "green hands" (also called "slop workers") -- usually women and sometimes children too -- perform "separate parts of a sequential process previously done entirely by skilled hands" (McPherson, 22). These tasks were performed in the genres of shoemakers, weavers, tailors, printers and cabinetmakers, McPherson explains (23).

Workers in that pre-war era that were "…at the bottom of the scale, especially women, children and recent immigrants, labored long hours in sweatshops or airless factories for a pittance"; the only way they could actually earn a livable wage was it "…other members of their families also worked" (McPherson, 23).

The African-American / Black Nurse at the Time of the Civil War

Nursing during the Civil War helped to provide a positive image for many Northern women -- including Black women. Indeed, there were a number of self-trained African-American / Black nurses during the time of the Civil War, prior to the existence of nursing schools that would admit Blacks. In author Althea T. Davis' book, Early Black American Leaders in Nursing: Architects for Integration and Equality, Davis mentions Susi King Taylor who was born into slavery and later worked as a volunteer nurse on the Civil War battlefield for "more than four years" (19). Taylor treated sick and wounded soldiers for Company E. At the Union Army camp, and helped many soldiers learn to read and write (Davis, 1999l, p. 19).

Davis also chronicles the fact that the Black nurse had struggles in common with Caucasian nurses during the Civil War. Both nurses and Black women emerged from the middle 19th century with "…great expectations for future development" -- only to discover that they would be subservient to a "caste system" that did not expect that they had "anything above mediocrity to offer" (Davis, 1999, p. 16).

While of course Black women had the bleak legacy of slavery and ongoing racist attitudes to contend with, both Black women and nurses were victimized by "political exploitation" and by "social ostracism" which placed both in "prolonged dark periods" (Davis, 16). Additionally, both nurses and Black women "…struggled against the influences of superstition and quackery," and both survived against stacked odds and "adverse conditions" (Davis, 16).

For a Black trained nurse -- notwithstanding the fact that she was thoroughly competent and experienced -- it was not an easy profession to be part of. As a group, Black nurses were simply not recognized by the public or business organizations as professionals. Add to those biases the fact that women, per se, had a status that, compared with men in that era, was "very low," Davis explains (16). Black women, unable to gain admittance to White schools of nursing, eventually began to get opportunities to learn nursing in 1886, when nursing schools for Black women began to be built.

One school of nursing for Black women opened in Atlanta, Georgia (Spellman) in 1886; a school called Dixie launched in Virginia in 1886; in 1891 a Chicago school of nursing for Blacks began operations; and Tuskegee, a nursing school for Blacks in Alabama opened in 1892 (Davis, 16).

There were powerful representatives from the feminine gender who had the courage to speak out against racism towards Blacks and the lack of fairness and justice for women per se; two of those women, Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, were untrained in nursing but they learned by doing, Davis explains (17). These two iconic women proudly participated in antislavery activities as well as actions that demanded suffrage for their gender. Truth, known more for her leadership with the Underground Railroad, had been emancipated in 1827 in New York (the "1827 Emancipation Act").

She served as a Civil War nurse after having some experience during her time in bondage. She was "purchased" by the Dumont family to serve as a family nurse well before being freed. A more permanent nursing assignment came about for Truth following a meeting with President Andrew Johnson in 1865. After that meeting, Truth was assigned by the War Department to work as a nurse in the Freedman's Hospital; she was asked to "…promote order, cleanliness, industry, and virtue" among the patients in that facility (Davis, 18). She was 70 years of age when she accepted that job. Not only did she do her own duties, but also she organized a group of women to clean Freedman's Hospital, Davis writes (18).

Truth knew that sick patients would never get healthy in "dirty surroundings"; hence, she used her powerful voice to convey her simple strategy (and it could be heard "throughout the corridors"): "Be clean! Be clean!" (Davis, 18). And so along with her sterling legacy as an abolitionist, a women's rights activist, a humanitarian, a great public speaker and a nurse that worked in the Civil War, Sojourner Truth should be remembered as a woman who went before the U.S. Congress to advocate for funds to train more nurses and doctors (Davis, 19).

Harriet Tubman, meanwhile, was also born a slave but unlike Truth she escaped at the age of 25 and became known as "the Moses of her people" -- leading over 300 slaves to their freedom across the Mason-Dixon line through the Underground Railroad. Tubman was a Civil War nurse for the Union Army; Davis explains that Tubman was "a brave and daring scout and spy" for the North, and was a "…compassionate nurse and wise healer with knowledge of herbal medicine" (19).

Tubman worked as a Civil War nurse at Port Royal, an island just off the coast of South Carolina; there she cleaned and dressed injured soldiers' wounds, and "prepared medicinal brews," something she had gained knowledge of during her years as a slave. In fact about the rampant dysentery she witnessed within the soldiers' hospital wards, Tubman went to the woods and picked "tow plants, the root of the white flower that floats on the water, and crane's bill." She then boiled the plants, the process of which produced a "bitter-tasting dark brew for the soldiers" (Davis, 19).

But bitter though it tasted, Tubman's brew reportedly was effective; the dysentery "ceased" and the soldiers were returned to good health. For her excellence as a Civil War nurse, a general from the Union Army approached Congress, advocating a pension for Tubman. After the Civil War Tubman gathered the resources together to build a home for homeless older Black Americans (Davis, 19).

Black Women Helped the War as Nurses, Recruiters, and Laborers

Author Lisa Tendrich Frank references the fact that by the war's end some two hundred and sixteen thousand African-American men had served in the Union army and navy. Many of those men -- mainly freed men -- had left wives at home to manage the household. The emotional pains those Black women experienced were greatly heightened by the thirty-seven thousand Black Union soldiers who were killed in the war. Meanwhile, while the war was underway, many of the Black wives served as "unofficial recruiters for the Union army" (Frank, 2008, p. 11).

Notwithstanding the fact that they were not paid for their services, Harriet Jacobs and Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin helped to recruit troops for the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth regiment, Frank explains (11). One Black woman who was paid to recruit for the war was Mary Ann Shadd Cary, who, in 1864, was hired by Indiana Governor Levi P. Morton to raise an entire Black regiment. Other freed Black women worked for the Union army as "…laborers, servants and laundresses… nurses, cooks, seamstresses, teachers and relief workers" (Frank, 11). These Black women, even though they were paid less than Black men and white women to perform duties for the North, the Black women "…nursed wounded soldiers, raises money and supplies to aid troops" (Frank, 12).

The federal government did not treat the Black women in a just way, Frank explains, and moreover the North "…failed to meet their economic obligations"; this failure was not acceptable to many Black women so they filed "formal applications to be paid for the work that they did," Frank continues (12). Though the petitions did not produce the hoped-for results, the Black women serving had a goal that was far more poignant that receiving fair pay: they labored "…under the knowledge that their hard work might secure the freedom of the nation's African-Americans" (Frank, 12). As to Black nurses, the Union army did not begin hiring Black nurses until January 16, 1864, Frank points out; still, even as hired nurses, there were many Black women that were assigned to "menial hospital tasks" like cooking meals, cleaning, and doing the laundry (12).

There were "many" Black women that served as "spies and scouts" for the North; these "courageous women passed Confederate secrets on to Union soldiers, informing them of maneuvers, troop numbers" -- and some Black women actually served as soldiers in the Union army albeit they had to "hide their sex" (Frank, 12). Virginian Maria Lewis served as a soldier in the Eighth New York Calvary, concealing the fact that she was female.

Black women whose husbands were fighting for the North were sometimes militant in their demand for fair treatment. For example, in the summer of 1864, a number of Black women were on a train bound for Camp William Penn, where they has been assigned to provide care for wounded Black soldiers. However, they were refused seats on the train. But they made a bold protest over this rude treatment and as a result there were changes in fairness policies in many instances where Blacks were clearly participating in the war effort, Frank explains on page 13.

As evidence of some of these changes in social policy, in 1864, the Black widow of a Black soldier killed in the war had a white conductor arrested in New York after the conductor assaulted her, forcing her off the streetcar (Frank, 13).

Black Nurses and Yellow Fever in Philadelphia

In the book The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, author Annette Gordon-Reed explains that Thomas Jefferson's decision to leave Philadelphia and move to the country in 1793 may have saved his life. That is because five months after Jefferson left Philadelphia, people were coming down with "…a mysterious illness that caused severe headaches and backaches, along with a high fever" (Gordon-Reed, 2009, p. 493). After a few days these victims' skin turned yellow, and "…they began to vomit blood so dark it looked black," Gordon-Reed explained (493).

This was the beginning of a plague of yellow fever in Philadelphia, that took an estimated five thousand lives; indeed, from August to November, 1793, up to fifteen percent of the entire population of Philadelphia "perished" and another 20,000 (including "most" government officials and leaders) "simply fled" (Gordon-Reed, 493). This epidemic hit the "black community hard in a number of ways," the author explained (494); some Black people stayed as volunteers, but "Many were conscripted and prevented from leaving so that they could dig graves and attend the sick." Many Blacks who had stayed behind "caught the disease and died"; unfortunately for those Black volunteers who stayed the only way they were repaid for their courageous work was through innuendo and slander from the Caucasian community.

Those Black volunteers were charged with "either robbing" their sick patients" or "overcharging them for services" (Gordon-Reed, 494). These charges were denied and a pamphlet was published by Richard Allen and Absolom Jones (founders of the African Methodist Episcopal Church) that "detailed the contributions of Blacks" to the relief efforts, Gordon-Reed explains (494).

Author Dorceta Taylor takes the story a bit further in her book The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600-1900: Disorder, Inequality, and Social Change. It was believed at the time that Blacks somehow were immune to the yellow fever, and Dr. Benjamin Rush, a leader in the Black community in Philadelphia, convinced Jones and Allen, and the mayor, that leaving Blacks behind to aid in the care of those ill was a good idea.

Taylor writes that even black prisoners were released to help the relief effort; "two-thirds" of the freed blacks volunteered to be nurses and all-told, about "three hundred blacks participated…" (Taylor, 2009, p. 71). For every white nurse that stayed behind, Taylor goes on, there were "twenty black nurses" and those Black "nurses" dug graves and buried the dead (71). Making matters worse for the Blacks involved in the relief work, they were "subjected to the fear and hostility of the whites whom they tried to help" (Taylor, 72).

When Blacks died from the yellow fever, whites claimed it wasn't the yellow fever but something else that killed them. "Hence doctors helped perpetuate the myth that blacks were immune to the disease," Taylor asserts; and when Black nurses fell ill from yellow fever while caring for white patients that suffered from yellow fever, "…they were chased from the homes in which they worked" (72).

Did hospital work change lives following the Civil War?

In some cases, pointed out by writers covering the topic, individuals that volunteered to work in the hospitals during the Civil War did experience new opportunities following the war. In other instances recorded by writers, there were not many opportunities for work in the healthcare field after the war. But there were other fields of service women could get involved with, Jane Schultz relates. The post-war work situation was an interesting dynamic and it did in many instances change the way women were seen in a public role.

For example, author Jane Schultz makes clear in her book Women at the Front: Hospital Workers in Civil War America that individuals involved in hospital volunteerism experienced dramatic changes in their lives when the war ended. The middle class Caucasian hospital worker (nurse, orderly, and other volunteers) believed that "…the confidence government had bestowed in them by allowing, however reluctantly," to become involved, would continue to give them additional opportunities. For those hospital nurses and other volunteers, once the war was ended they believed that they now had a chance to "build on the advocacy the war had served up to them" (Schultz, 2004, p. 146).

After all, those "hardened veterans" who had worked long hours in hospitals and had been witness to the ghastly specter of serious injuries, and who had watched men die, believed they would be offered some kind of a "partnership" in a military activity of some kind after the war (Schultz, 146). Their reasoning was simple: we gave as much as we could give to the war effort, and now we expect in some form an "honored place in the polity" and an opportunity to do other related work in the public sector. It wasn't to work out quite that way, Schultz explains.

In fact there was a "fury of disapproval" from the public as regards females working in field of healthcare and medicine, Schultz reports. Some historians have claimed that the war acted like a "dynamo in speeding [women's] entry" into the workplace outside the home, and that opportunities for women "gradually increased throughout the nineteenth century" (Schultz, 147). However, Schultz challenges that historical reflection, and believes that the considerable experiences that women had during the Civil War "…did not necessarily translate into workplace achievement" (147). For some of the "elite" women (those who had obtained the education to become doctors and nurses) in the North, they did find "satisfying work after the war" (Schultz, 147).

But for the roughly two-thirds of relief workers that were not considered "elite" -- who believed their unselfish service to the North should give them "the potential to lay claim to a larger share of work outside the home" -- many did not seek training as nurses or doctors in the postwar period (Schultz, 147). On page 148 Schultz flatly states that because the men fighting the war were "subjected to bullets and exposure" and because the concept of "manliness, amply demonstrated during the war, precluded veterans from the language of domestic comfort" they fully expected to return to their roles "as breadwinners and protectors of women and children."

In other words, the men would go back to their traditional roles as patriarchs and the men would expect that women would be subservient again, now that their work in hospitals and in other position that helped with the war effort. The belief that the women all would go back to strictly domestic matters had "other ideological implications," however, Schultz explains, turning the page somewhat from her earlier narrative. In fact many relief workers "…moved into teaching and social service" after the war -- which were positions that had powerful domestic themes albeit not in the healthcare or medical field. Schultz quotes from the book by Linus Brockett and Mary Vaughn (Woman's work in the Civil War); these two authors believed that the war had not "altered women's domestic bent" at all.

Women volunteers and relief workers that had been paid were "heroines," according to Brockett and Vaughn, who in the aftermath of the war could participate in a "higher and holier future" by "delivering vagrant and wayward childhood from the paths of ruin" (Schultz, 148). But did many women actually participate in these tasks? They were clearly ready, the authors state, and they were prepared to work with educational needs, help for the "downtrodden" and help for "the fallen sisterhood" along with improving hospitals (Schultz, paraphrasing Brockett and Vaughn).

Catholic Nuns as Civil War Nurses -- Primary Sources

An essay by Barbra Mann Wall recounts the primary source missives to and from nurse-sisters as they were boarding -- and while on board -- hospital ships during the Peninsula Campaign of the Civil War. Mother St. John Fournier who was the superior for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Philadelphia, was aware that while tending to wounded soldiers aboard a hospital ship, the nuns under her supervision would not have full access to mass. Hence, on April 19, 1862, she penned the following orders:

"Make your medication in the morning after your prayers and be not troubled if you can say no other prayers of the community, not even if you are deprived of mass on Sundays" (Wall, 2007, p. 387).

Another primary source from that essay includes the words of Dr. Henry Hollingsworth Smith, who was the principal surgeon for the Pennsylvania Volunteers. He knew the Sisters of St. Joseph, and was "…aware of their reputation as good nurses," Wall explained. He wrote to Mother St. John, using third person in explaining why only the nuns from St. Joseph would be hired to work with injured and ill soldiers.

"Whilst beset by applicants, every female nurse has been refused, Dr. smith being unwilling to trust any but his old friends the Sisters of St. Joseph" (Wall). On board that hospital ship (and on others) were "male and female nurses" from "middle and upper classes" who administered medications and served food to the wounded patients. Also on board the hospital ships were "African-American women and white working-class women"; their tasks included "cooking, washing, and other physical labors in the care of the sick and wounded" (Wall).

Examples of women engaged in role-changing post-war humanitarian work

There were examples of outstanding post-war services performed by women, which does directly relate to the way roles changed because of and following the Civil War. Indeed, women like Maria Mann, Horace Mann's niece, a teacher, politician, reform activist and attorney, who spent 1863 working in a freedmen's camp in Arkansas and after the war went to Washington to help in an orphanage (Schultz, 148). This work by Maria Mann would qualify for what Schultz termed efforts by "elite women" -- and Katharine Prescott Wormeley would also fall into the category of an "elite women" in her post-war efforts to help others.