WOMEN AT WAR
When the Civil War began in 1861, women in both the North and South found themselves in “new roles both in the public and private spheres to protect their respected causes and families.”(1) While entire communities were left with no male presence, women took on roles as business owners, farmers, plantation directors, in addition to their everyday roles as mothers. Volunteering in “aid societies” (2), which met to knit clothing, bandages and gather supplies for the troops, was commonplace for both northern and southern women. Some women even volunteered as nurses in hospitals, or on the battlefields like Clara Barton did; however, this was looked down upon by society due to the stigma of women working in public.(3)
CONTINUED EFFORTS
Through the extreme chaos of the Civil War, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony persisted in their efforts to achieve equality. Both women continued to send petitions across the country, urging women to join the movement.(4) They saw the destruction that the Civil War was causing as a chance to elevate the status of women in society. "The political upheavals of the postwar era" that would be necessary to "redefine American citizenship" appeared as an opportunity to ensure women the rights they had continually been denied.(5)
THE FALL OF TRADITIONAL SOCIETY
The new roles that women assumed during the Civil War forced traditional societies to change. In the North, where women had previously held ‘lady’ appropriate jobs like teaching or attending women’s schools, these expanding roles were not greatly opposed. However, “the South’s ‘peculiar’ institution of… gender hierarchy” was compromised as southern women gained access to new purposes in society.(6) Satisfaction no longer came through embodying the traditional ‘southern belle’ homemaker bound to her husband’s control. Southern women now sought satisfaction through being a part of society, and doing purposive work in it.
A large reason for this shift in the southern woman’s mindset was due to an education crisis during the war. As male soldiers left to go fight for the cause, no one with a qualified education remained to teach the younger generations. This prompted southern women to begin teaching in local schools, despite most of their students having more of an education than them.(7) When the war was over and men returned home, southern women were reluctant to give up the new jobs they had become so passionate about; in fact, these experiences caused them to demand more education opportunities, which they eventually would be granted, so they could be properly qualified to teach.(7)
While southern women did not completely support the women’s rights movement until the later years of the 19th century, effects of the Civil War exposed them to the possibilities of a life of equality and purpose. The experiences that southern women underwent during the Civil War helped bring an end to the traditional patriarchy of the south, making southern feminists a possibility in the soon to come First Wave Movement.
Works Cited
Elizabeth Haber, "Spotlight on the Women of Atlanta during the Civil War," Historic Oakland Foundation, https://oaklandcemetery.com/spotlight-on-the-women-of-atlanta-during-the-civil-war/.
Ibid.
William F. Pinar, "The Gendered Civil War in the South," Counterpoints 163 (2001), http://www.jstor.org/stable/42977754.
*Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Letter to the Standard (1866),”http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ2161000151.
Libby Garland, "'Irrespective of Race, Color or Sex:' Susan B. Anthony and the New York State Constitutional Convention of 1867," OAH Magazine of History 19, no. 2 (2005), http://www.jstor.org/stable/25163765.
Pinar, "The Gendered Civil War"
Ibid.
Ibid.
Photo Credits
Intro Photo: "Confederate Nurses of Atlanta". Google Images