Women: Role and EffectsKitty Adair

Background● ideal women were homemakers

o private, feminized domestic sphereo “True women” devoted lives to

creating a clean, comfortable home for their husbands and children

● During Civil War, women started working outside the homeo joined volunteer brigadeso worked as nurses

Women in the Union● organized ladies’ aid societies to supply Union troops with food, clothing,

and money● June 1961: United States Sanitary Commission created to combat bad

hygiene and bad food● working class white women, free black women, and enslaved black women

worked as laundresses, cooks, and matrons● 3000 high class white women worked as nurses● Activist Dorothea Dix, superintendent of Army nurses, insisted all her

nurses were “past 30 years of age, healthy, plain almost to repulsion in dress and devoid of personal distractions”

Women in the Confederacy ● worked in the same jobs as the union● had much less money● provided uniforms, blankets, sandbags, and other

supplies to the troops● worked as untrained nurses in makeshift hospitals● many wealthy Southern women relied on slaves and

never really had to do any work

slaves and freewomen● slaves had to do their normal jobs, plus the jobs of the husbands who were

away at war● left to provide for their family on their own

women spies● Pauline Cushman-Union Spy: worked with the Army of Cumberland;

gathered info about enemy operations, identified Confederate spies● Mary-Elizabeth Bowser-Union Spy: after her master died, his wife secretly

granted Mary freedom; brought supplies to Union and secretly conveyed messages b/w prisoners and Union officials

● Rose O’Neal Greenhow-Confederate Spy: used powerful social connections to get info on Union military activity and stole secret coded messages

women spies cont’d

Pauline Cushman, Mary Elizabeth Bowser, and Rose O’Neal Greenhow

BibliographyWomen in the Civil War. (n.d.). Retrieved December 8, 2014, from http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/women-in-the-civil-war

http://americancivilwar.com/women/women.html

http://www.army.mil/article/11458/vivandieres-forgotten-women-of-the-civil-war/http://www.koat.com/image/view/-/18262786/highRes/2/-/uvvtmd/-/Women-in-Combat---Civil-War-jpg.jpg

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/women-spies-of-the-civil-war-162202679/?no-ist