Patriotic Toil: Northern Women and the American Civil WarDuring the Civil War, the United States Sanitary Commission attempted to replace female charity networks and traditions of voluntarism with a centralized organization that would ensure women's support for the war effort served an elite, liberal vision of nationhood. Coming after years of debate over women's place in the democracy and status as citizens, soldier relief work offered women an occasion to demonstrate their patriotism and their rights to inclusion in the body politic. Exploring the economic and ideological conflicts that surrounded women's unpaid labors on behalf of the Union army, Jeanie Attie reveals the impact of the Civil War on the gender structure of nineteenth-century America. She illuminates how the war became a testing ground for the gendering of political rights and the ideological separation of men's and women's domains of work and influence. Attie draws on letters by hundreds of women in which they reflect on their political awakenings at the war's outbreak and their increasing skepticism of national policies as the conflict dragged on. Her book integrates the Civil War into the history of American gender relations and the development of feminism, providing a nuanced analysis of the relationship among gender construction, class development, and state formation in nineteenth-century America. |
Contents
Tapping Female Patriotism | 19 |
Seventh Regiment Marching Down Broadway April 16 1861 | 21 |
Design for a New Fancy Ball Character Suggested by the | 28 |
A Nationalist Elite | 50 |
Henry Whitney Bellows | 56 |
Frederick Law Olmsted | 64 |
Dr Elizabeth Blackwell | 85 |
Organizing the Homefront | 87 |
Managers Canvassers | 147 |
Womans Central Relief Association officers at Cooper Union | 152 |
The USSC Confronts | 170 |
Louisa Lee Schuyler | 185 |
Branch Autonomy and Local Civic Pride | 198 |
Floral Temple at the Metropolitan Fair | 212 |
The USSC Retreats | 220 |
Sanitary Commission wagons leaving Washington for the front | 231 |
Making Havelocks for the Volunteers | 97 |
Members of the Soldiers Aid Society Springfield Illinois | 112 |
Homefront Charges of Corruption | 122 |
Heroes and Heroines of the War | 127 |
Appraising Female Warwork | 248 |
Exterior of the Womans Central Relief Association office | 265 |
Bibliography | 277 |
Common terms and phrases
agents aid societies American American Civil War antebellum April April 19 associate managers Bellows Papers Bellows's benevolence Blackwell Blatchford Bloor Papers Bulletin canvassers charity Christian Commission Civil claimed committee Diary Documents donations economic efforts elite Elizabeth Blackwell Ellen Collins February federal female public feminist FLO Papers Frederick Knapp Frederick Law Olmsted gender George Templeton Strong Henry Bellows Henry W Henry Whitney Bellows History homefront women hospitals household labor January January 29 July leaders letter Livermore Louisa L Louisa Lee Schuyler Louisa Schuyler male Mary ment Metropolitan Fair military moral nationalist needs northern women November Olmsted Papers organization patriotic political popular recruits reported responsibility Sanitary Commission's sion social special relief Stillé Strong supplies tion town U.S. Sanitary Commission Union army Unitarian United States Sanitary unpaid USSC Papers USSC's voluntary volunteer warfront wartime warwork WCRA WCRA officers WCRA's welfare Woman's Central Relief wrote York City