ePub Cultivation and Culture: Labor and the Shaping of Slave Life in the Americas (Carter G. Woodson Institute Series in Black Studies) by From Brand: University Press of Virginia in History

Description

In antebellum society; women were regarded as ideal nurses because of their sympathetic natures. However; they were expected to exercise their talents only in the home; nursing strange men in hospitals was considered inappropriate; if not indecent. Nevertheless; in defiance of tradition; Confederate women set up hospitals early in the Civil War and organized volunteers to care for the increasing number of sick and wounded soldiers. As a fledgling government engaged in a long and bloody war; the Confederacy relied on this female labor; which prompted a new understanding of women’s place in public life and a shift in gender roles. Challenging the assumption that Southern women’s contributions to the war effort were less systematic and organized than those of Union women; Worth a Dozen Men looks at the Civil War as a watershed moment for Southern women. Female nurses in the South played a critical role in raising army and civilian morale and reducing mortality rates; thus allowing the South to continue fighting. They embodied a new model of heroic energy and nationalism; and came to be seen as the female equivalent of soldiers. Moreover; nursing provided them with a foundation for pro-Confederate political activity; both during and after the war; when gender roles and race relations underwent dramatic changes. Worth a Dozen Men chronicles the Southern wartime nursing experience; tracking the course of the conflict from the initial burst of Confederate nationalism to the shock and sorrow of losing the war. Through newspapers and official records; as well as letters; diaries; and memoirs―not only those of the remarkable and dedicated women who participated; but also of the doctors with whom they served; their soldier patients; and the patients’ families―a comprehensive picture of what it was like to be a nurse in the South during the Civil War emerges.