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Womens rsponsiblities during world war one
Theory of women's role in the civil war era
Womens rsponsiblities during world war one
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In the years before the Civil War, the lives of American women were mostly shaped by a set of ideals that historians call “the Cult of True Womanhood.” As the men’s work moved farther away from the home and into shops, offices, and factories, which made the household become a new kind of place: a private, and feminized domestic sphere. “True women” devoted their lives to creating a clean, comfortable, and nurturing home for their husbands and for their children. During the Civil War, per contra, American women turned their attentions to the world apart from the home. Thousands of women from the North and South involved themselves in volunteer brigades and they signed up to work as nurses. This was the first time in Americans history that women played …show more content…
a significant role in the war effort. By the end of the Civil War, the involvement these women had expanded many Americans’ definitions of what “true womanhood” is. Fighting for the Union In 1861, there was an outbreak of war. Women and men alike anxiously went and volunteered to fight for the cause. In the North women organized ladies’ aid societies to supply the Union troops with everything they needed. From food to clothing. Women baked, and planted fruit and vegetable gardens for the soldiers. They would also sew and launder uniforms for them. But that wasn’t enough for many women. Many women wanted to take a more effective role in the war efforts. Women were inspired by the work of Florence Nightingale and her fellow nurses in the Crimean War. They tried to find a way to work on the front lines, they would do this by caring for the sick and injured soldiers and keeping the rest of the Union soldiers healthy and safe. Approximately 20,000 women worked precisely for the Union during the war effort. Working-class white women who were free and also enslaved African-American women who worked as cooks, and laundresses. And about 3,000 middle-class white women worked as nurses. One woman was Dorothea Dix, she was the superintendent of the Army nurses, and was responsible for finding volunteers that would not throw off the troops, and not behave in unseemly ways. Dorothea Dix insisted that her nurses should be past 30 years of age, they should be healthy, and plain to dress to devoid personal attractions. Army nurses would travel from hospital to hospital to provide humane and proficient cares for wounded, sick, and dying soldiers. They would also act as housekeepers and mothers for the soldiers under their care. Women of the Confederacy Women from the South threw themselves into the war effort with the same amount of zeal as the North counterparts. The Confederacy had less money then the Union did. However, they did so much work of their own that they were able to relief societies the same way as the South. They too were able to cook, sew, and provide for the men. They would provide blankets, sandbags, and other supplies needed for the entire regiments. They would write letters to the soldiers and worked as untrained nurses in makeshift hospitals. They would care for wounded soldiers in their homes. Many of the Southern women, especially the wealthy would rely on slaves for absolutely everything. They never had to do much work. Slaves and Freedwomen Women who were slaves, of course, were not free to contribute to the Union cause. They never had the luxury of “true womanhood”. One historian pointed out that being a woman never saved a single female slave from the hard labor, beatings, rape, and family separation. The Civil War promised freedom for the slaves, but because of the war, it added to these women’s burdens. In addition to their own plantations and home labor, many slave women had to do the work of their husbands and partners. The Confederate Army frequently impressed male slaves, and slaveowners fleeing from the Union troops and would often take their most valuable male slaves, but not women and children with them. Women Soldiers of the Civil War July 1863, a Union burial detail at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania made a startling discover near the Cemetery Ridge. Among the bodies of the Confederate Soldiers, which were covering the ground after the Confederate attack-a Union man found a dead woman wearing the uniform of a Confederate private. Some women went to war in order to share in the trails of their loved ones. Others went for adventure. Sarah Edmonds Selye also known as Franklin Flint Thomson said “I could only thank God that I was free and could go forward and work, and I was not obliged to stay at home and weep." (Smith, 2011) Women stood a smaller change at being discovered than one might think.
Most people that fought in the war were known as “citizen soldiers” with no prior military training. Some of the women that were in uniform were discovered. This often happened after they were wounded in battle and sent to a field hospital. Clara Barton for example discovered Mary Galloway’s true identity while she was retreating a chest wound that Galloway had suffered during the Battle of Antietam. Most women that were discovered usually left with little to no punishment, few women were unlucky and faced imprisonment. Discussion and Conclusion During the Civil war, women faced a host of new and different duties and responsibilities. these wartime contributions helped expand many women’s ideas about what their “proper” place should be. Women played many different roles in the Civil War. They did not just sit idly and wait they went and supported the war effort, some as nurses and aids and others took a more upfront approach and secretly enlisted in the army, and served as spies and smugglers. Whatever the duties were these new jobs redefined women traditional roles as mothers, housewives, and they were made an important part of the war
effort.
The article was published on February 6, 1943 in the midst of World War II. Women had become an asset to the war effort and were then considered "At Home Soldiers" or "Riveters". They worked in the factories constructing submarines for the Navy, planes for the Air Force, and became medics.
Clara Barton’s ‘The Women Who Went to the Field’ describes the work of women and the contribution they made on the civil war battlefield in 1861. Barton highlights the fact that when the American Civil War broke out women turned their attention to the conflict and played a key role throughout as nurses. Therefore, at first glance this poem could in fact be seen as a commemoration of the women who served in the American Civil War as its publications in newspapers and magazines in 1892 ensured that all Civil War veterans were honoured and remembered, including the women. However, when reading this poem from a feminist perspective it can be seen instead as a statement on the changing roles of women; gender roles became malleable as women had the
Abolitionism was around before the 1830’s but, it became a more radical during this time. Before 1830, Benjamin Lundy ran a anti-slavery newspaper. In 1829, Lundy hired William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison went on to publish his own newspaper the Liberator.
In the 1840’s, most of American women were beginning to become agitated by the morals and values that were expected of womanhood. “Historians have named this the ’Cult of True Womanhood’: that is, the idea that the only ‘true’ woman was a pious, submissive wife and mother concerned exclusively with home and family” (History.com). Voting was only the right of men, but women were on the brink to let their voices be heard. Women pioneers such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott wrote eleven resolutions in The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments; this historical document demanded abolishment of any laws that authorized unequal treatment of women and to allow for passage of a suffrage amendment.
Most of their work became invisible and the women were referred to as amateurs. Many historians consider this time after the war as gender amnesia because everyone after the war forgot all the women did. Women were credited for their contributions. This amnesia caused the women to lose the little inclusion that they had and not many fought this because of the urge to go back to normalcy (Berkin). If the need to become a strong and steady nation had not meant a push back to normalcy, the women may not have been set back as much in terms of inclusion.
After the success of antislavery movement in the early nineteenth century, activist women in the United States took another step toward claiming themselves a voice in politics. They were known as the suffragists. It took those women a lot of efforts and some decades to seek for the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. In her essay “The Next Generation of Suffragists: Harriot Stanton Blatch and Grassroots Politics,” Ellen Carol Dubois notes some hardships American suffragists faced in order to achieve the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Along with that essay, the film Iron-Jawed Angels somehow helps to paint a vivid image of the obstacles in the fight for women’s suffrage. In the essay “Gender at Work: The Sexual Division of Labor during World War II,” Ruth Milkman highlights the segregation between men and women at works during wartime some decades after the success of women suffrage movement. Similarly, women in the Glamour Girls of 1943 were segregated by men that they could only do the jobs temporarily and would not able to go back to work once the war over. In other words, many American women did help to claim themselves a voice by voting and giving hands in World War II but they were not fully great enough to change the public eyes about women.
They were considered no use to the society, because they were labeled as being weak. They wanted to be privileged with the same roles as the men did, such as fighting in a battle. The Civil War gave the women an opportunity to do something about their wants. They took action by disguising themselves as men, so they would be able to attend the war. The woman began to take part in other battles that occurred as well. Many of them were able to get away with the scam for a while, until they ended up dead or injured. Those who did not want to join forces and fight still managed to participate in the war in several other ways, like supplying them with things they needed. They decided to take control over things such as teaching jobs, industries, slaves, and family farms and businesses. Women from the North and the South volunteered as nurses during the
Women’s role in society changed quite a bit during WWI and throughout the 1920s. During the 1910s women were very short or liberty and equality, life was like an endless rulebook. Women were expected to behave modestly and wear long dresses. Long hair was obligatory, however it always had to be up. It was unacceptable for them to smoke and they were expected to always be accompanied by an older woman or a married woman when outing. Women were usually employed with jobs that were usually associated with their genders, such as servants, seamstresses, secretaries and nursing. However during the war, women started becoming employed in different types of jobs such as factory work, replacing the men who had gone to fight in the war in Europe. In the late 1910s The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) had been fighting for decades to get the vote for women. As women had contributed so much to the war effort, it was difficult to refuse their demands for political equality. As a result, the Nineteenth Amendment to the constitution became law in 19...
In “Disorderly Women: Gender and Labor Militancy in the Appalachian South,” Jacquelyn Hall explains that future generations would need to grapple with the expenses of commercialization and to expound a dream that grasped financial equity and group unanimity and also women’s freedom. I determined the reasons for ladies ' insubordination neither reclassified sexual orientation parts nor overcame financial reliance. I recollected why their craving for the trappings of advancement could obscure into a self-constraining consumerism. I estimated how a belief system of sentiment could end in sexual peril or a wedded lady 's troublesome twofold day. None of that, in any case, should cloud a generation’s legacy. I understand requirements for a standard of female open work, another style of sexual expressiveness, the section of ladies into open space and political battles beforehand cornered by men all these pushed against conventional limitations even as they made new susceptibilities.
When all the men were across the ocean fighting a war for world peace, the home front soon found itself in a shortage for workers. Before the war, women mostly depended on men for financial support. But with so many gone to battle, women had to go to work to support themselves. With patriotic spirit, women one by one stepped up to do a man's work with little pay, respect or recognition. Labor shortages provided a variety of jobs for women, who became street car conductors, railroad workers, and shipbuilders. Some women took over the farms, monitoring the crops and harvesting and taking care of livestock. Women, who had young children with nobody to help them, did what they could do to help too. They made such things for the soldiers overseas, such as flannel shirts, socks and scarves.
In a 1944 magazine article, Eleanor Roosevelt claimed that American “women are serving actively in many ways in this war [World War II], and they are doing a grand job on both the fighting front and the home front.”1 While many women did indeed join the workforce in the 1940s, the extent and effects of their involvement were as contested during that time as they are today. Eleanor Roosevelt was correct, however, in her evaluation of the women who served on the fighting front. Although small in number due to inadequate recruitment, the women who left behind their homes and loved ones in order to enlist in the newly established Women’s Auxiliary Army Corp (WAAC), and later the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), were deemed invaluable to the war effort.
The women during the war felt an obligation to assist in one form or another. Many stayed at home to watch over the children, while others felt a more direct or indirect approach was necessary. Amongst the most common path women took to support the war, many "served as clerks.filled the ammunition cartridges and artillery shells with powder at armories, laboring at this dangerous and exacting task for low wages. Both sides utilized women in these capacities (Vol. 170). " Women that stayed away from battlefields supported their respected armies by taking the jobs that men left behind.
Women were not only separated by class, but also by their gender. No woman was equal to a man and didn’t matter how rich or poor they were. They were not equal to men. Women couldn’t vote own business or property and were not allowed to have custody of their children unless they had permission from their husband first. Women’s roles changed instantly because of the war. They had to pick up all the jobs that the men had no choice but to leave behind. They were expected to work and take care of their homes and children as well. Working outside the home was a challenge for these women even though the women probably appreciated being able to provide for their families. “They faced shortages of basic goods, lack of childcare and medical care, little training, and resistance from men who felt they should stay home.” (p 434)
Great people often arise from unlikely places. During the civil war women were barred from serving in the army; however, women did sometimes disguise themselves as men and enlisted in both the Confederate and Union armies. During the Civil War years of 1861 to 18-65, soldiers under arms mailed countless letters home from the front. There are multiple accounts of women serving in military units during the Civil War, but a majority of these incidents are extremely hard to verify. Nevertheless, there is the one well-documented incident of the female Civil War soldier by the name of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman.
During the Civil War, women began to feel like part of the work force, but along with it, was the downfall of being considered "service workers", which is very similar to being a servant. Nurses had to suffer through much conformity, as they had to wait hand and foot on male patients, while at the same time being scrutinized by their male "overseers". These issues that nurses faced in the nineteenth century, continue even to this day, with a little more ease, but we are still driven by a patriarchal society that just isn't ready to let go. Through the works of Louisa May Alcott and Charlotte Perkins Gillman, one can see the hardships that Nineteenth century women were faced with when it came to working. These stories bring to light the fact that, by overcoming oppression, through the strength and desire that leads to resistance, women have been able to achieve self-reliance, which makes their "service work" considered to have with it, an achieved independence. These stories show us the struggles that women faced in the nin...