Civil War 1861.
Black women &
children abandoned - fled to Union army camps;
North & south women
form thousands of aid societies - get clothes, food, medical supplies to
troops;
North collected $15
million worth, raising money, selling needlework, holding concerts;
women ran farms &
businesses;
U.S. Treasury Dept hires
women to replace male clerks;
Lincoln approved of
hiring war widows;
Criticism of their
morals, worried about women as distraction - fired at war's end;
South women new public
visibility;
New Orleans mainly
female population;
sewing bees to make
rebel banners, taught schoolchildren rebel songs,
pinned Confederate flags
to dress,
spit at Union soldiers;
3,200 women nurses: example
of British Florence Nightingale;
Doubts whether proper
for "refined modest ladies" to care for "strange men and crude soldiers from
all walks of life."
Union Army appointed
Dorothea Dix superintendent of female nurses;
1840s Dix teacher who
visited Mass. Jail - horrified that mentally ill thrown in with criminals;
establishment of 32
mental hospitals;
war nurses experience as
administrators; great risk;
women as spies;
women as soldiers
disguised as men;
cooking & laundry;
1863 Stanton &
Anthony -
National Women's Loyal
League (NY)
Stanton: "woman is
vitally interested and responsible with men for the final settlement of this
problem of self-government."
Openly political - criticized Pres. Lincoln for not acting
boldly enough;
Jan 1, 1863 Lincoln -
Emancipation Proclamation - freed only slaves in states under Confederate
rule;
women urged passage of
13th Amendment to Constitution to abolish slavery;
NWLL 5,000 members, met
weekly. Speaking tours, collect
almost 400,000 names on petition for 13th Amendment.
Anthony called for League
to demand women's suffrage as their "birth right of freedom" - resolution passed, but scared away
many members;
Post Civil-War society:
Southern "black codes";
race riots in Memphis, New Orleans; Ku Klux Klan;
- 1870
15th amendment: "The right of citizens to vote shall not be denied or
abridged by the US or by any State on account of race, color, or previous
condition of servitude".
National Association of
Colored Women