Transcripts For CSPAN3 Civil War-Era Women And Volunteerism 20170806

You all read a primary source document written by a woman who purchase spitted in the civil war, luisa may alcott who worked as a nurse. We will start off our class today by looking at possible at hospital sketches, which all of you should have available to you. Out and ready to see. The big question that we are posing and investigating today, is how did womens volunteerism shape the choices they make joined the civil war, and how did that volunteerism, affects the outcome of the civil war . [it is really two questions] those are our overarching questions. So we start with Louisa May Alcott, and her hospital sketches, published during the war. T was serialized and published americans who read magazines it was published in could read about her experiences in the civil war era hospital. So, i would like to hear your thoughts about this account of civil war hospitals. What makes you think about Louisa May Alcott . I will scoot this down so we can look at her while were talking about her. There she is. All right, go ahead, scott. Scott one thing that i liked about it was that you dont really see much of her, previously prorated we havent really had any exposure to the inside of the hospital. We just know them from killer angels, however was a terrible place. It was good to see of the experience, being one of the people tasked with handling basically the impossible, helping soldiers who were all terminally no one really made it out of the hospital ok. So, dealing with that, and what trying to heal soldiers was like, such as cutting off a limb and hoping for the best. All right good. Good. Prof. Giesberg a first insiders look from a real witness, what the civil war hospital looks like. What scotts suggested, was pretty dismal. But it was good. Anyone else . Tell me about your First Impression of the book, as you read it. Go ahead, riley. I have more of a question. She calls him she is called mrs. Perry winkle in the book, was she publicly known as Louisa May Alcott, did she publish under her name . Were women not allowed to have their own stories and things . Prof. Giesberg good question. Why did she use a pseudonym miss periwinkle . And i think you put a finger on it as well. There is this, sort of come away in which a woman of her class, right, is supposed to follow the rules at the time. Women are supposed to be private. It is also not an uncontroversial decision for a woman, right, of of her elite stature, to make a decision to go into a hospital at the time. Hospitals are dangerous places where there are lots of strange man, right . That you dont know, and you would have to be around them. In part, that was a strategy that not only alcott but other women would use, to protect their reputations. And also, to sort of, it reminds us that there were holes that women like alcott were breaking when they went into the hospital to do that. I think it becomes widely known nonetheless, to write this. In part, it was just a game. Sort of to maintain her anonymity. But that was a good question. There were a few other hands that were up. Go ahead, jim. First impression, i thought it was interesting to read she was posing to her family friends, one of them said you should go be a nurse. And she just went right off, not knowing what she was getting into. She took everything in stride, even the great difficulties that she went through. Prof. Giesberg yes, she portrays this decision as rather abrupt. It was not like she went through Nurse Training School and learned about how diseases were spread, or how to take care of injured people. But she described it as something instantaneous. Right . And that is surprising. Right . Good. Miriam . I think it was admirable that the first suggestion that was given to her she said ok, i will , do it. I thought that was interesting, not even giving it a second thought, just wanting to help so badly. Prof. Giesberg yes, she did not pause. Her lack of preparation did not make her cause. You have to give her credit for that. Right . We can imagine that it was not unlike the way men made the decision to enlist. They did not necessarily prepare for that. For that decision, and it likely probably happened pretty quickly as well. It makes sense that she would portray it that way. We do not actually know. How much conversation there was within the hour got household about her daughter going off to this dangerous place. We did get a sense of some apprehension, right . Yeah, but this also could have been dramatized read i felt like she wanted to do something, she made the decision that she was going to do it. It wasnt like oh i did it, but oh i should not have said yes. She was committed, either way, even if there was any apprehension. Prof. Giesberg right. Ryan, what about you . This is an underratedly funny book. I wouldnt say very funny, but it is about hospitals, but if you were to read other source documents it would be more dismal, cori or violent, but she puts an interesting humorous twist on it, which i thought added a lot to it. I thought she had had a pretty fun spin on it. Which is interesting, i was surprised about her sense of humor about everything. Prof. Giesberg all right, good. So, maybe a way to think about that was that she had a sense of she had a audience in mind. She knew that she was not writing this for her parents or necessarily for the next generation, but she was writing for an audience. She clearly wanted people to read it and for it to be entertaining, too. And she does weave in her own sense of humor throughout it as well. I think the jury is still out on whether everybody laughs as much as she intended to. Maybe, 19thcentury people left more than we did. I think that even though she only had a few days of training, how little formal training most of the nurses had, publicly the only experts in the room where the doctors and obviously there were few of them. The other part was that when people were coming in there was hesitation mentioned, saying go and take care of these men and wash them. Even the doctors would say, i dont know if this is right for a woman to see. It was definitely a sense of impropriety here, but because it was wartime, she pushed through those boundaries. Because it did not matter at the end. Women were making strides, in this time. Nothing really stuck, the boundaries kind of went back sadly after the war. Prof. Giesberg right, very good. Lots of stuff going on there. She is hugely aware that she is breaking rules. That is why she played this game with the pseudonym, and talked about the apprehensions that her parents had about sitting their daughter off to something they did not know about. But she certainly pays deference to that. It is not just that there will be strange men there, that she will be touching them. Right . That is totally scandalous for a 19thcentury woman. She is not even supposed to expose an ankle. Right . You dont expose your own body at all, as a woman, and for you to be in the position of being around lots of french people and lots of strange people and touching them, she talks about that, right . That moment when she is like whoa, wait a minute. This is not something i anticipated. And without running the outcome. We know that it will not stick, but there were some changes that will stick. Good. What about you . I got the feeling that it is almost like an overly romanticized view today of civil war hospitals how grotesque it was to be there, i dont think her focus was necessarily to draw attention how gross and disgusting war can be, but rather to show the importance of nurses, and to show that women are capable of more than they are what they are traditionally asked to. I dont think it necessarily draws much attention to how grotesque the actual hospital was, but it proves her point that women have or are capable of more than they are traditionally asked to at the time. Prof. Giesberg very true. She is keenly aware of this when she is published at the time, but she has a point to make. And that is the point. That the hospital is a place, for women like her. For a middleclass woman, whose parents might be sort of leaning on them, or whose husbands might be leaning on the thing know, this is not the place you need to go. That is a great point. It makes sense that we get the romantic version, the humorous version she is trying to make it safe, to tell people that it is safe. Because, at the time he was not. People who nursed in hospitals before the civil war, are mostly men. Right . Or, women who came from workingclass or people who were not from the middleclass or from elite families like her own. Who is next . You. Jumping off to this point, there was a lot about duty, and her pride parade on page 60 she talks about how she is proud of what she has done, compared to what her friend did for her dead husband. Lets make sure everybody gets their at the same time. Page 60 . Yes. Yes, in the third paragraph she talks about how she does not regret her experience, and the duty that she has done. All that is the bravest in the hearts of men comes out in these and a little bit further down, for the amount of pleasure i got from that, the compensation, i take some satisfaction in the thought that theuld not lay my head on altar of my country. She is talking about how she did her duty and all that, and that goes back into the romanticized account of everything. Many civilread too war memoirs, but i think this is memoirs. Istic of war people do not really talk about their personal feelings, how they could not grasp what they were seeing. Another thing on page 21, the last paragraph. She cited several structures, each who were legless, entering my ward, admonishing me that i was there to work, not to wonder or weep. A hard road to travel. Maybe i did not read it close enough, but there was not too much about how she came to grasp with what she was seeing with the wounded occupants. Prof. Giesberg no she doesnt. Nowadays, in war memoirs, theres a lot about how people come back, and thought nurses and doctors, and how those nurses see the worst of it in the war zones today. But back in the day, it was all about duty, all about that romanticized version of war. I thought that was most interesting. Prof. Giesberg yes, she is careful. Some of the memoirs are letters that you all will read, about news sharing, with home, and what kind of music are keeping to themselves, or sharing among fellow soldiers, or in her case, fellow nurses. There is a careful way that she is not there alone, we should remember that. But even while she is there, she is keenly aware of what kind of information she was to share, and what she doesnt. That gets back also to her intentions of painting the hospital as a place where women should be. Because she has an alto motive, not just her duty, which is to make this point. I think youre absolutely right. We should look for those kinds of moments, in your own primary sources that you are using for your papers. About how they are selecting some news that they are sharing, then other news. That they are not sharing, what that there is selfconscious editing of themselves that they are doing here. Another thing, then i will go over to him. What about this corked up my feeling, stuff. She said that a couple times. Why say that, other than to remind us that she is carefully keeping some of the worst things from her memoir. Right . Why is why do you think as a woman she would feel that she would say that the it goes back to questions about gender expectations, and how she is constantly coming up against them. Why would she say that i should corked up my feelings . Prof. Giesberg yes . Works i think at that time women were perceived as overly emotional and i think she was demonstrating that she could deny these emotions in order to do her job effectively. Yes. Jubilee . I think, the decades leading up to the civil war, there was a cult of domesticity and the idea that women were supposed to be in the home, and the protectors of society, paragons of virtue, and because of that, they needed to be shielded from real life, and the public sphere. So, by saying that she is capable of corking up her feelings, she is breaking down that distinction, and the idea that there needs to be separateness. That women have a role there, not just to be confined in the home. Prof. Giesberg perfect, very good. It dies into the language of domesticity. That the home is a safe place for you to have, feel your emotions. Right . Express your emotions. And people thought that for women, it should be. Because they were incapable of separating those things. So, she makes a very conscious decision to say that. And, she is not the only nurse to say that. Others would say the same thing. That they would learn to corked up their feelings. They will say that in a very public way. Yes . On page 39. She is saying i could have sat down and cried heartily. She goes on. Saying i could not just give up not do her job correctly and have them be blundered into eternity by the rashness. I do not know if im interpreting that right, but she seemed like she had a strong emotional reaction to it, the blunder, and it is just not appropriate to have a reaction like that when someone is dying. Especially, right after a brave soldier like skylar yes, the hospital is a workplace. And female nurses are openly clashing with doctors about the fact that they do not belong there. She even alludes to that a few times that doctors were not welcoming these women into the work case with open arms. So i think, that is exactly how i interpret those moments too that she is reflecting that. These can be and were hostile places. For middleclass white women like Louisa May Alcott, workingclass women, women of color. They all had to fight their way into this hospital situation and one of the things that she is doing is for giving us hints about, is talking about keeping her emotions in check. Being a professional, even though she is a volunteer. She is accepting that emotional distance, right . That the doctors will be demanding of everyone around them. She plays that both ways though, right . What happens when our handsome rebel is dying . What were you going to say . Where were you going to go . Going off of that in a different way, something i thought was interesting was that the female nurses were the strong ones, and the wounded men were weak. And the wounded men needed the female nurses, so that was different than other things i have read about the civil war so far. Prof. Giesberg good. She is portraying them as helpless. Almost infantilizing them. Right . She makes them seem very dependent, childlike. And that way, kind of also makes it seem like for women who were not middleclass women who were not trained in anything, they feel like they can do that. Right . That is the dumbest to city jubilee, right . That women are supposed to be experts, just because, about taking care of children. That you are just born to do that, or to know how to take care of your health, born to know how to take care of children. So, if you portray these soldiers as infant like that woman would feel like she was ok. Like i can do that. So, good. Next . You talked about how the doctors were clashing with the nurses and did not want them there, saying that it was a big step for middleclass women, to being there. What started middleclass women deciding to go and become nurses, should know, she did not talk about that. What started them doing that . Great question. I think we have to note your great question on wednesday, in the way that we usually do. We will talk about that in a second. But, timing is important. And there was this war in europe called the crimean war which proceeded the u. S. Civil war and there was a woman named florence nightingale. She goes into the field as a nurse and rights a very popular book. That book, notes on nursing it widely circulated. Here in the school of nursing in villanova, we have a picture of her hanging out here in the building somewhere. She writes a book and middleclass women in america devour it. It is like an action adventure story for them. Because she writes the book in such a way that is to say as to say that there is something you can do as a middleclass woman. She also believed that he should be trained to do it, by the way, that you should not just run off. But she ends up like Louisa May Alcott, so there is an eager way in which people are watching the war, and she writes a very compelling account of it which makes it sound possible. And then you cannot discount the stuff that alcott talks about. She was inspired because she wanted to do something. I think that was how we started this conversation, the men were rushing off to enlist. She talks about that, and they all found a place for themselves and the war, and she was looking for hers. A generation of people who wanted to do something, wanted to be part of something, did not want to be felt left behind. Women felt that too. Unfortunately, there was this book, nathaniel, that had just arrived on their parlor tables, and made them think i can do that. I can sprinkle lavender on hankies, i can write letters. So they do not smell of rotting limbs, or whatever. And they got inspired to do it. A good example of how the doctors treat the nurses, unable to really handle the situation on page 46. Prof. Giesberg page 46. The male surgeon goes over to tell her to take a rest, so that she doesnt get too exhausted and fall ale. So he says kindhearted little gentleman who seem to consider me if pharrell a frail young blossom, like spencer who had been knocking out the world for the past 30 years. She is trying to protect portray herself as a sturdy woman who doesnt need to take any rest. But a frail doctor is trying to inform her that she will perish under her own will. Prof. Giesberg right. That is a great example. I want to talk about alcock, and some of the people she gets into contact with in the hospital. We know there is a tension between her and doctors. The first question is, how would you describe her nursing work . What were her major sort of responsibilities . What kinds of things did she do . Caitlin . Sitting with the men, talking to them, i know she would wash them, things like that. But it looks like he was in doing anything overly medical. Like nurses today. Prof. Giesberg right. Not putting an id, not making sure they are oxygenated or anything like that. Good. Evan . Later she talks about how i dont know what happened to the nightwatchman but sometimes she would take a night shift, take a walk and make sure that the men were doing good in bed or Something Like that. Prof. Giesberg yes, she was sitting in the ward, watching them. Washing. What else . She would also write letters for them. Prof. Giesberg she did, yes. Which you wouldnt normally expect nurses to be doing, medical nurses. Or comforting them. More emotional things. Prof. Giesberg yes, right. She is there with pen and paper, when it is time to write mom or your wife, or Something Like that. Good. Ethel . One thing she does reminds me arehat hospice care nurses doing, helping alleviate their pain, instead of doing medical work to help them get better. Taking care of them, while the doctors do whatever medicine they are doing at the time. Prof. Giesberg yes, there is a sort of providing of comfort which seems to be her main goal and there is food, making sure they are fed, picking sure they are clean, making sure they are right when they are there. Reminding them to write those letters. Sometimes delivering bad news to them. There was a moment where she was supposed to tell this guy that he is not leaving the hospital. All right. So, who was doing the other work. The other work . The doctors, right . We know that. But, who is cooking . Who was mopping the floors . There has to be a lot of blood and yuck on those floors. Who is cooking, doing the laundry, with all of the cutting off of limbs and things like that . There were slaves around to do that sort of thing. And she had interactions with a sweet black man who was in charge of the food, because it was not coming at the right time, and she said you have to and he is like you need to come to the right time come at the right time. Prof. Giesberg yes, and he seems like a cook, or somebody in charge of getting the food out to the soldiers. Right . Yup. So, we know that there are free blacks or former slaves who were working in the hospital, because we see them early as two billy reminded us, in the food preparation, and they come out in the narrative too. And in other places as well. She talks about women who worked there with her little boy with her, but then later she devotes a few pages to how the other woman interact with the colored people that work there, and kind of portraying herself as oh, i was not afraid to touch him or anything but the other , woman wouldnt go near her working in the kitchen. Even when she is in bed, looking at the window, the observations she makes about groups of black people walking down the street, down the street. In washington. Yes. Distinguishing from the gentleman she is used to seeing from, was she from maine . She is from massachusetts. I thought that was odd to read. Yeah, her reflections are interesting. There is a moment, the first one that you mentioned, i think it is page 49 or, no, i cannot remember where the one is, where she talks about herself as a proud abolitionist. She got mad i think that was the , same place where you mentioned someone being dismissive of the young boy . Because she would not touch him. So she made sure she showed that she was immune to racism by touching this young boy. I think it was page 58. Prof. Giesberg oh yes, there it is. Would one of you like to read that section there . Is that it . Nurses would be willing to be served by colored people, but seldom thanked them, never praised and scarcely recognized them in the street. Whereas the blood of two generations of abolitionists waxed hot in my veins, i took the opportunity to assert the right of free speech as ugly as as doggedly as the irrepressible herself. Prof. Giesberg very good. In that next one, she talks about touching the young boy to show that she is immune to racism. I then there were other moments, you mentioned where she is kind fact, not justin awkward, but smacks of what we would consider gardenvariety racism. I dont remember exactly, but she would be out Walking Around or something, and she would definitely sound superior to them. Oh yeah. She mentions a few times in the book how she was a pure abolitionist. But just above that part we were reading, she said she expected she would have to defend herself from being prejudiced. Yes, absolutely. Yes, riley . Yes, she said the freed slaves are totally different from the respectable like members of society in boston. And she describes them as turkish and lazy and ignorant. So, that is something that if you are and abolitionist and describing black people in that way, it seems that you are more prejudiced. Yes, absolutely. A really great example, and there is a later one where she thinks that they are stealing. And she talks about tough disappearing and she just assumes that good. Kendall, were you saying . At that time, would it be considered appropriate to be working a long time with slaves working alongside slaves for woman of her class . I think that is a really good question. It underscores the point we were making a little while ago, the promiscuous setting of the hospital. Men and women mix together, and black and white mixed together. So, the fact that she is working with people of color, it reminds you of that. On the other hand, we know by the time, that by the time the war begins, several decades in which black abolitionists and white abolitionist had been working together. We knew that here in philadelphia, that other quakers flaunted their interracial nature, the groups of abolitionists. Right . They would walk down the street arm in arm with people of color in philadelphia, and they would get beaten up and yelled at. But there is a way in which, a tradition of interracialism was them among abolitionists but she seems to have had very little contact, or she evidences very little experience working with people of color. It looks like another reason why she uses the pseudonym of ms. Periwinkle. I think that is part of it. I think that is certainly part of it. And it might just be that the Bostonian Group of abolitionists with whom she rubbed elbows with, maybe they are a different class of these radical quakers here in philadelphia. Anytime i get a chance of taking a pop shot at boston in favor of philadelphia, i am going to do it. So, i will stick with that even though i do have any evidence of that. [laughter] and also, it is also we have to make sure we had to be we have to be careful. It is a common thing for abolitionists to remark on their own racism. And their own limits of racial thinking. They know that they are racists, right . But the way that she dismisses others, it can be a little bit off putting for a 21st century reader, right . To have her say other people are racist and then in the next sentence that says you says that makes you Say Something like what . Come on lou. Very good. Now, i think we will hold on to what we talked about here as we look at other examples of people going out into the war, to find their own places in this war. The thing to keep in mind right, is women who would go into these positions, even our friend Harriet Tubman with whom was started, started the war off as volunteers to read they had to volunteers. To be for fight professionally recognized and by the end of the war, they had put in place a situation where others can follow them into the profession. So there was no professional nursing before the civil war. There are no Nursing Schools before the war. After the civil war, they the veterans of this war, would go on to open some of the first professional Nursing Schools. And veterans of other parts of the civil war went on to seek professional entree for women into other jobs as well. They pushed for women to be practicing doctors, pushing against local rules that prohibited women from voting. The war begins or restarts the push for professional credibility for women. And not just because of what she does, but because of what some of the other people that we will be looking at, do as well. We will go quickly through some of these because you guys were it far ahead of me in making making this point here. Jubilee reminded us that all of this is happening within the context of this notion of domesticity. The idea that women, were made for the private sphere, and were supposed to be safe there read that was their place and the world outside was reserved for men, and not safe for these middleclass women. This was their domain. And we can see miss alcott rubbing up against that, and pushing up against that. We also know that women had, this year, highlights that, the separate spheres of domesticity. You have, lefthand side and the lefthand side of this domestic scene, highlighting the way that what men and women were supposed to leave the way that men and women were supposed to live this separate existence, for training that the mystic expectation. Yet, despite this expectation, women got involved in things like temperance work and become abolitionists, and all those things were about taking them outside of the domestic experience. Generation originated, when you it was already there. So, there is that sort of established tradition of, of questioning the vista city, that alcott inherited. That her generation inherits. Right . So, when the civil war begins, and women will choose to stretch the parameters of domesticity, and one might say that nursing is that. The, in some ways, people who defend themselves, because of the nurses nurses say they are not really doing anything different that they would do at home. Except they are doing it in the field, in the hospital, to be mothers and sisters, and wives. Right . In some ways, alcott, she even first to the hospital as being a marriage, right . A couple of times. What is the difference between this and marriage question mark that she married the war. And she talks about being in place of peoples mothers and wives, when she is there. When she is holding someones hand or writing a letter. And that was one way in which people could explain this unusual things that women did, simply they were extending their domestic function, where men needed them. Not all women did that. Some women decided to go up against the limitations of the misty city and push those envelopes. I want to give you some of those examples then we will go back to alcott. Here is one of my favorites, 19thcentury iconoclast, Mary Edwards Walker was a medical doctor. There were not a lot of them in the mid19th century because american medical schools not allow women to enroll as it is. If you wanted to become a doctor in mid19th century america, you had to go abroad or go to either colleges to get your medical degree. Then, when you came back and wanted to do your residency, you could not get into a hospital. So, there were a smattering of women that serve as doctors in the civil war. All of them have to go the extra mile to get their medical degree, including women like Mary Edwards Walker, who volunteers first as a nurse. You have to write all these you dont have to write all of these things down, they will be up there. What she is going to be at some of the most significant battles in the war, as a nurse. In the meantime, she had hair her medical degree, and pushing the Army Medical Department to give her an appointment as a surgeon, which is what she would been called as a doctor. And she was lobbying them, even though she is there taking care of men, doing a lot of the probably not just running around with lavender in a handkerchief and writing letters, that likely doing a lot more than Louisa May Alcott was doing in her hospital situation. Finally in 1864, towards the second half of the war, she finally gets appointed as a surgeon. In recognition for all of the work she has been doing for the last three years, really as a doctor. Right . What about this picture of her strikes you . What is unusual about the way she looks . Riley . She is wearing pants. [exclaims] she is wearing pants the whole time she was in the hospital, she talked about how unsanitary it was for women to be Walking Around with these silly hoop skirts that they swished around, and in the process collected all of the yuck and spread it around. She thought it was a surgeons nightmare to think that women went into the hospital with those 19thcentury getups. So, for her it made sense. Plus, it was dangerous to be wearing getups like that. You could trip to read you could get yourself sick. Louisa may alcott got herself sick. So, walker insisted on wearing pants. As incredible of a surgeon as she was, and she was supposed to be pretty goodbye 19thcentury standards, she probably didnt wash her hands, the thing that struck people more about Mary Edwards Walker, was not how good of a surgeon that she was, but the fact that she wore pants. People always talk about her pants. It was the thing that obsessed them. Heres one of her male colleagues. The absurdity of the u. S. Army appointing this medical monstrosity and they are not talking about anything else wrong with her. There is nothing wrong with her, it is the fact that she is wearing pants that is freaking this guy out. One dressed in that hybrid costume. Clearly pants are clearly too much for people to handle. Right . She also becomes a prisoner of war towards the end of the war, she becomes a prisoner of war. She gets taken captive and serves as a pow in richmond. And for that, the other thing about her getup that is so interesting what about right there . What has she got on her jacket . Yes, a metal of honor. Professor yes, a medal of honor. As of the beginning of this year, she is the only woman to be granted the medal of honor, i believe. Does that sound right . Alfred . Is that possible . Could we possibly be in 2017 and have that be the case . I dont know of any others. I dont know any others. Yes, me neither. I thought that cannot be right, but after the war, she was the only woman given a medal of honor, because she ultimately served as a pow. So there is Mary Edwards Walker. So some woman answered the call by becoming doctors. Probably 200, or 300, or 400, women who took that saying of going in disguise and took it one step further and dressed up as men, and listing in the army. We know most of these people that historians have identified are people that enlisted in the union army. That is likely just because of sources. There is surely a comparable number of people that served in the confederacy as well. Some of you are doing or papers on some of these women that disguise themselves as men. Private Franklin Thompson served in fredericksburg, and after the war was over, her comrades defended her service, even after they found out that she was disguised. They did not know, that she was disguised the whole time. Or maybe they did and pretended that they claimed to not know after the war and the defended her afterwards. And here is sarah edmonds, talking about why she did. She was an immigrant from canada and for her, this decision was her way of proving herself to be a citizen. It was patriotic of her to do it. Jennie hodgers. A. K. A. , albert cahier. Can we take a guess as to which when she is in the picture . Who do we think . I will go with the person on the right. That is a good guess. And you would be right. Served in the 95th illinois infantry. Like some of these other women, Jenny Hodgers was not discovered until well after the war. In fact, here is a 20th century newspaper article, that finally revealed that albert cahier is actually jenny heizers. She disguised herself, and it worked so well for her that she continue to do it, for years after the war until she was discovered. When she went in, i believe she wanted to get her physical to get her pension, and that is when someone discovered that albert was a little bit different from some of the other men who were coming in to get their pension. One of the comrades who defended her referred to her in language that seems so obvious to us in the 21st century, as old halfandhalf. Which suggests what to us . We have to try to think like 19thcentury people. Does it sound like they may be new something was up . Probably, right . But, albert could carry a rifle and good fight, so they just played along. As they did with several other examples but i will show you. That i will show you. Here is francis, i like her because she looks mean as hell. Frances clayton was in the main cavalry. Here she is in her cavalry uniform, and here she is obviously not in her uniform. She looks like she could have been a formidable soldier. I think. And then of course, you all know, because hes just started with this Harriet Tubman. You were many layers to this woman, she was not only a conductor on this underground railroad, but she actually let a regiment of the United States color troops on this river raid. In the aftermath of the war she has to fight to get a pension as a soldier, even though she did lead a regiment of men. She fought for years and years and years to get a pension for that work that she did. In the end, she never gets it. In the end, she gets the pension from the United States army, but not because she actually served in the army, but because she married a man after the war who had been in the army. So she gets a pension as a widow of an army man even though she had served in the army. Those are the sort of unusual ways that women go into the war. The sort of more beatendown path, the path that we have records of many women attempting it, through the more traditional routes. Prewar groups that had been working on solving moral problems in their communities easily became local soldiers relief organizations when the war began. So, they collected supplies and sends them to the front in pretty much every town and village throughout in particular in both the north and south. In the south it becomes increasingly difficult for these societies to sustain themselves. They have to collect food and supplies at home. Right . They cannot send them off to the troops. So, these soldiers in the north, these eight societies would continue throughout the whole war. From those soldiers eight societies, is born the precursor, the 19th century precursor to the american red cross. That organization United States was called the Sanitary Commission. It was an organization that really began as an attempt to organize relief. So now when there is a disaster, people dont try to rush supplies directly to the disaster, right . You give money to an Umbrella Organization like the red cross who then does that work for you. During the civil war, the years before the red cross, an organization was born with the same idea. It originated from soldiers aid societies. And from the work of a couple women who had already been well established by this time, dorothea dix who you something about, and also Elizabeth Blackwell. Dorothy was an advocate for the rights of the insane before the war, and Elizabeth Blackwell was the First American woman to earn her medical degree. First American Woman to let to earn her medical degree. Together these two women created the origins of this red crosslike thing, the United States Sanitary Commission. Through the Sanitary Commission, some women tried nursing. The Sanitary Commission did not just send supplies but also sent nurses eventually. Some women went into nursing that way. Some went on their own, like alcott the red she didnt go through any organization, she had friends who got her an appointment, and should got a pass and got everything laid out for her. In the time we have remaining, i would like to go beyond that middleclass experience, and talk a little bit more about the experience of all those other people who figure in as players and all caps drama alcotts drama. As i suggested this is the first generation of middleclass women that think of themselves potentially as nurses. Before that the hospital was a place for workingclass women, people of color, people who work well beneath that class of people. I would like to go beyond here. There is florence nightingale, who when mentioned to you earlier, when jackson asked about who made it safe, or who inspired these middleclass women to go in to hospital. Florence nightingale, her book notes on nursing was very popular at the time and a lot of these women were reading it. So, beyond that middleclass people nursing experience has been well explored, and there were many other people who ended up in hospital doing a lot of the hard work. Right . The work that alcott and others were not doing. Their Hospital Experiences are different from alcott. The hospital could be a dangerous place, it was a place where you had to sort of fight for your credibility as a middleclass nurse. As a workingclass woman, our or as a woman of color, you had to sometimes fight for your own life. It was a place where you could be attacked by a soldier, and there were women white women and women of color who reported that africanamerican women who served in these hospitals, became the subject of abuse, and were often raped a soldiers or by surgeons. So, this is a very dangerous place for an africanAmerican Woman to be, to work in these hospitals. Here is a reflection by a white woman, talking about what could happen to a woman of color who served in these hospitals. These women went into this work sometimes because they wanted to do the right thing, sometimes because they needed to earn a living, but they also took their lives into their own hand. It became a very dangerous experience for them. Some of these pictures you can see, these marginal figures in these pictures, people who were doing some of the most hard hospital work, right . Taking care of the physical labor of cleaning, laundry, and all of that. You can see it in the slides here. And here, this woman didnt even stop washing long enough for the picture to be taken. She is moving the washtub. Working in those environments converted some of these white middleclass women to abolitionism who werent there before. Here is an example of abby hopper gibbons, who talked about her nursing experience and how she learned what slavery was, and became much more aware of the problems of racism, because of what she had seen in the hospital. Here she is talking about the outrage of slavery. I am going to go quickly to our southern examples. In the south, even more so than in the experiences we have been seeing among people like alcott, the hardest work done in the hospitals in the confederacy was done by enslaved people. Men and women, did the hardest work nursing in these hospitals. Here is a picture of a hospital right outside of richmond virginia, which was essentially run by enslaved of the enslaved africanamericans. These people some were drafted into this work. They did not volunteer to do it, and was a got there, they had to negotiate the terms and they did negotiate the terms in which they stayed. We know about them, because the white women who were sort of the matrons of these hospital, complained about them all the time. Even more than Louisa May Alcott did. They complained about these enslaved hospital workers. Here at this hospital in richmond, the white hospital matrons complained that that the moment these men started to evacuate richmond, all of the enslaved hospital workers took off. They left. They were negotiating the terms under which you worked in these hospitals. They were there, maybe sometimes motivated by the desire to do something good, often because they were coerced to do so. But the moment they had a chance to fight for freedom, these hospital workers did that. You can imagine what that would do to a hospital, to have certainly suddenly everyone who is doing all of the hard work, to disappear. Here are a couple pictures of the women who were doing this work. This woman who worked in a hospital of tennessee, always complained about the workers. This other woman, worked in a hospital that we just saw here, talked about the cooks who deserted her. She uses the term deserted as if an inflamed person, who was striking out for freedom, for her, they were deserting her. Leaving her with the work of cooking. Hospital nursing was also, on both sides some of these women who run away, from slavery, would wind up showing up in Union Hospitals as well. I will live you with this picture of ms. Taylor. She was a fugitive slave who run away with her family, and when she comes into the union, to the north, she then volunteers to become a nurse for the United States colored troops. Is anyone doing her for their papers . No . Well, she writes a member of her experience working for the 30 third u. S. Colored troops. First as a nurse, and then as a teacher. The people that she works with are eager to learn to read, and she knew how to read, so she writes her memoirs, and talks about how she is there not only to serve the men as a nurse, but also to work as their teacher. We know less about these women in these experiences because the southern white women who survived the war will write their memoirs thick and fast, and those memoirs will tell a narrative that covers over their story of slavery and covers over of the work that those women of color did in confederate hospitals. And men of color. What becomes of this nugget of nursing history we have seen here being planted, here in the civil war . A couple of examples. This woman is a woman who worked for the Sanitary Commission in the aftermath of the war. She worked in new york city to open up the first hospital the first school of nursing. She trained women to be professional nurses. Skyler does. And there is a cluster of his other schools that will open up in aftermath of the war as well. Taking nursing from being this voluntary thing that middleclass women did and refused to get a salary for into modernity and turning it into a profession. Clare barton becomes the first president of the american red cross, as you know, turning her nursing career into profession. And lets leave with Louisa May Alcott. What the she going to do . She writes some books. Right . What does she right . Among other things, little women. Right . And what do we think about that book . Some of you read it, right . Do you think it is better . More entertaining . Would you recommend that more readily than you would recommend hospital sketches . That is where we will end. Alcott as professional writer, not as a volunteer nurse. Thank you all. Have a good day. Well see you wednesday. Thank you. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy, visit ncicap. Org] artifacts,can american president life portraits. We tour the Herbert Hoover president ial library and museum. Lyndon johnson was always on the telephone. He had a telephone installed in his after. He would bring people in there and talk to them. He also recorded phone conversations he had. Noddedere supposed to be the 50 years after he died. Harry truman and celebrities. We look to act on his relationship with celebrity athletes and entertainers. President truman did not necessarily seek out entertainers or wellknown people. He cultivated some relationships, especially with jack any. Any. Ck American History tv, all weekend every weekend on cspan3. Monday night on the communicators, were at the conference in las vegas with the executive director of the National Center for Security Research and training. Attacked almost daily. Not going to are eliminate this threat. Weve got to learn to live with it. We have never eradicated the flu virus. We have learned to live with it. You do certain things. You isolateot, yourself from people who have the flu. There are measures you take in the physical world that are now applicable to the digital world. Watch the communicators. All weekend, American History tv is featuring tacoma, washington. Cspans cities tour staff recently visited many sites showcasing its history. Located approximately 60 miles northwest of mount rainier, tacoma has a population of about 198,000 people. Learn more about tacoma all weekend here on American History tv. Ms. Iyall we are at a really beautiful place here in the puget sound. This is nisqually homeland, also known as leschi country. Its a name translates to place where you get your spirit power. Were looking out over the nisqually refuge. The nisqually people were originally known as people of the river, people of the grass. Our homeland has always been this entire beautiful area. Nisqually people were here preterritory time and fre