Civil War: The Cult Of True Womanhood

985 Words2 Pages

In the years before the Civil War, the lives of American women were mostly shaped by a set of ideals that historians call “the Cult of True Womanhood.” As the men’s work moved farther away from the home and into shops, offices, and factories, which made the household become a new kind of place: a private, and feminized domestic sphere. “True women” devoted their lives to creating a clean, comfortable, and nurturing home for their husbands and for their children. During the Civil War, per contra, American women turned their attentions to the world apart from the home. Thousands of women from the North and South involved themselves in volunteer brigades and they signed up to work as nurses. This was the first time in Americans history that women played …show more content…

Most people that fought in the war were known as “citizen soldiers” with no prior military training. Some of the women that were in uniform were discovered. This often happened after they were wounded in battle and sent to a field hospital. Clara Barton for example discovered Mary Galloway’s true identity while she was retreating a chest wound that Galloway had suffered during the Battle of Antietam. Most women that were discovered usually left with little to no punishment, few women were unlucky and faced imprisonment. Discussion and Conclusion During the Civil war, women faced a host of new and different duties and responsibilities. these wartime contributions helped expand many women’s ideas about what their “proper” place should be. Women played many different roles in the Civil War. They did not just sit idly and wait they went and supported the war effort, some as nurses and aids and others took a more upfront approach and secretly enlisted in the army, and served as spies and smugglers. Whatever the duties were these new jobs redefined women traditional roles as mothers, housewives, and they were made an important part of the war

Open Document