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Role of women during the american civil war
The American revolution and women's rights
The American revolution and women's rights
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Before the Civil War, women were expected only to create clean, comfortable, and caring environments for their household. But, the Civil war completely changed the American view of a woman's responsibilities. Women took on a new role as soldiers and other key parts in battle. They organised aid relief and created new, innovative ideas on war strategy. Even though they were not respected in the world of war and business at the time, their efforts drastically changed the expectations and acceptance of women in the future. Before the Civil War took place a woman's daily responsibilities consisted of caring for her family and running her household. It was her job to ensure a safe and comfortable home life. The woman of the house would act as a hostess to guests and a teacher to her children, if she had any. (“Women in the Civil War”) Some of the time the women would also clean and cook if she had no slaves to perform ‘lesser’ tasks. Women that did own slaves were often apart of a wealthy family that was in the upper class; this meant that she did not have to do many maintenance tasks around the household and she could focus on serving her family and the community. (“Colonial Women”) Often a woman’s social status depended on what family she was born into or who she was arranged a marriage with. …show more content…
The women of both North and South then adopted new responsibilities in response to the war efforts. Women in the South started volunteer units and started making supplies such as uniforms, sandbags, blankets, and packaged foods for the soldiers. The women of the South also started contributing to the war with aid societies and auxiliary. Since the women of the South did not have as many resources and were poor they could not contribute as much as the women of the North did. (“Women in the Civil
The book begins by explaining the roles that women in this time were known to have as this helps the reader get a background understanding of a woman’s life pre-war. This is done because later in the book women begin to break the standards that they are expected to have. It shows just how determined and motivated these revolutionary women and mothers were for independence. First and foremost, many people believed that a “woman’s truth was that God had created her to be a helpmate to a man” (p.4). Women focused on the domain of their households and families, and left the intellectual issues of the time and education to the men. Legally, women had almost no rights. Oppressed by law and tradition, women were restricted their choice of professions regardless of their identity or economic status. As a result, many women were left with few choices and were cornered into marriage or spinsterhood, which also had its limitations. As a spinster, you were deemed as unmarried who was past the usual age of marriage. Patronized by society, these women were left and stamped as “rejected”. On the other side, If the woman became married, all that she owned belonged to her husband, even her own existence. In exchange to her commitment, if a woman’s husband was away serving in the military or if she became a widower, she could use but not own, one-third of her husband’s property. This left her to manage the land and serve as a surrogate laborer in her husband’s absence. Needless to say, a day in a woman’s life then was filled with a full day of multi-tasking and as circumstances changed, more women had to adapt to their urban
It was the women’s who was charged with keeping the home in order. The destiny of a black women during the slave era were to absurdly be pushed to give offspring by a random slave men so he can ultimately be sold or be used in the plantation. Her societal purpose was to cook, sew, wash, clean the house, breastfeed her kids as well as breastfeeding her master’s offspring. Customarily black women were given domestic or demeaning work to show their inferiority within society if we look at the pyramid of different classes of people in that era. Black women represented a mother figure to attend to the needs of black men and children in her community. She was not compensated for the work she had performed. She was very much indispensable to the survival of her community. The black women experience to share the sweat and tears of her race in the antebellum era and the revolutionary period played a big role in her survival, and her humanity. Hers and others survival through that difficult antebellum time has led them to their contribution of the revolutionary period, and ultimately gave birth to freedom from
Nonetheless, southern women were often pulled out from their family, constrain to live a miserable life at the husband house and unable to leave their house without an escort, whether is to visit family member often hundreds of miles away. Her husband could often leave the plantation for weeks for business purpose elsewhere in the country, trusting her to run the plantation alone. In the Old South marriage was not standardized, women were forced into arrange marriage often to others family member in other to keep their wealth. The Old South was very much an undemocratic society, built on old-fashioned notions of honor and fortune, and women were captive to this far more than men were. Although they had all the luxury a person could want in the world, despite laws that forbid a woman from owning slaves and the lack of sufficient education, responsibility for managing the entire plantation often fell on her in the absence of her husband. She was responsible for taking care of her home, raise and teach her children. Beyond the fact that she took care of her children’s, she was also required to looks at needs of any slaves her husband may own, stitching their clothes, keeping a lawn to
When first examining the documentation it is difficult to comprehend whether women were being patronized or treated too delicately; the fact of the matter is the average treatment of women during this era was radically different from society’s attitude toward men. It is also evident women exploited stereotypes to their advantage. Larry G. Eggleston explains the particular viewpoint of American society in Women of the Civil War as “Women were held with respect even though they were considered to be the weaker sex. Many women broke away from society’s traditional view of women when the Civil War began” (1). To avoid detection agents often manipulated social stigmas. Traditionally, Men were expected to join their countrymen upon the battlefield and women were to remain at home attempting to keep order. Some women were equally effective from their posts at home, while acting as scouts for their respected causes.
Slaves during the mid-1800s were considered chattel and did not have rights to anything that opposed their masters’ wishes. “Although the slaves’ rights could never be completely denied, it had to be minimized for the institution of slavery to function” (McLaurin, 118). Female slaves, however, usually played a different role for the family they were serving than male slaves. Housework and helping with the children were often duties that slaveholders designated to their female slaves. Condoned by society, many male slaveholders used their female property as concubines, although the act was usually kept covert. These issues, aided by their lack of power, made the lives of female slaves
Southerners compared themselves to the ancient Romans, another proud race of slave owners. Dipping back two millennia, they gave their slaves names like Cato and Cicero and celebrated a culture in which families were strong, men were in charge, and slaves did the physical labour. women were expected to follow the lead of the Roman matron, who presided over the hearth, took care of the children, and entertained her husband's guests. poor women, of course, did not get to stay home. They worked as seamstresses and washerwomen, often to support a family in which the man had run away or failed in his duties as a breadwinner. Slave women were expected to labour with their men in the fields. But plantation wives, who set the tone for Southern culture, despite their small numbers, did not do physical housework. Their letters, which are full of reports about gardening, smoking of meat, cooking, and sewing, actually referred to work done slaves, which the white mistress supervised.
In the book Women in the Civil War, by Mary Massey, the author tells about how American women had an impact on the Civil War. She mentioned quite a few famous and well-known women such as, Dorothea Dix and Clara Barton, who were nurses, and Pauline Cushman and Belle Boyd, who were spies. She also mentioned black abolitionists, Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, feminist Susan B. Anthony, and many more women. Massey talks about how the concept of women changed as a result of the war. She informed the readers about the many accomplishments made by those women. Because of the war, women were able to achieve things, which caused for them to be viewed differently in the end as a result.
“The Pastoralization of Housework” by Jeanne Boydston is a publication that demonstrates women’s roles during the antebellum period. Women during this period began to embrace housework and believed their responsibilities were to maintain the home, and produce contented and healthy families. As things progressed, housework no longer held monetary value, and as a result, womanhood slowly shifted from worker to nurturer. The roles that women once held in the household were slowly diminishing as the economy became more industrialized. Despite the discomfort of men, when women realized they could find decent employment, still maintain their household and have extra income, women began exploring their option.
When women first arrived to the new colonies, many did not have the money to pay in order to get off the boat. This forced them into 4-5 years of servitude. Women would then be free to search for a husband. In Colonial America, the social status of citizens was based on financial standings, ethnicity, and religious beliefs. Social class was a determining factor of opportunities available to women. They had considerably greater rights than their counterparts in England, however women faced the strict rules and discrimination of a predominantly Puritan society.
Often historical events leading up to the twentieth century are dominated by men and the role of women is seemingly non-existent outside of reproduction. When one thinks of notable and memorable names and events of the Revolution, men are the first to be mentioned. The American Revolution was mainly dominated by men including George Washington, Samuel Adams, and Benjamin Franklin. There is no denying that men were vitally important to the American Revolution, but what were the women doing? Often overlooked, the women of the Revolution played a key role in the outcome of the nation. The women of the American Revolution, although not always recognized, were an influential society that assumed risky jobs like soldiers, as well as involvement
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.
When the American Civil War began on April 12th, 1861, over 3 million Union and Confederate soldiers prepared for battle. Men from all over America were called upon to support their side in the confrontation. While their battles are well documented and historically analyzed for over a hundred years, there is one aspect, one dark spot missing from the picture: the role of women in the American Civil War. From staying at home to take care of the children to disguising themselves as men to fight on the battlefield, women contributed in many ways to the war effort on both sides. Though very few women are recognized for their vital contributions, even fewer are.
2]“Never before have women had such power to be on a battlefield. Persons’ along with Clara Barton influenced the beginning of a medical revolution. In a society where women didn’t have the same opportunities as men. Although, some may believe that the civil war was a second revolution, others may also believe that the civil war was indeed the first modern war. For the first time, technology has transformed warfare.
When the words Civil War comes to mind, some might think about North and South, slavery, Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee or even Ulysses S. Grant. But does the word nurse come to mind. Being a nurse of the Civil War was an important duty that many women had an opportunity to be a part of. The results of the Civil War changed history for many things but a major thing that came out of it was the women nurses. Women from the North and from the South came out of their houses and what they were familiar with and decided to help those who were wounded and hurt. There were “thousands of women [who] served as volunteer nurses during the civil war” (Civil War Nurses, 1). The women of the Civil War made a change not only then but for the future. Women from the North and South came out to help with the war effort, there are names we do not know about and there are names that live on today and their contribution to the war shaped the world.
“Women’s roles were constantly changing and have not stopped still to this day.” In the early 1900s many people expected women to be stay at home moms and let the husbands support them. But this all changes in the 1920s, women got the right to vote and began working from the result of work they have done in the war. Altogether in the 1920s women's roles have changed drastically.