Synopses & Reviews
As many as 20,000 women worked in Union and Confederate hospitals during America's bloodiest war. Black and white, and from various social classes, these women served as nurses, administrators, matrons, seamstresses, cooks, laundresses, and custodial work
Review
Breaks new ground. . . . Highly recommended.
Choice
Review
Breaks new ground. . . . Highly recommended.
Choice
Review
Women at the Front is a significant achievement.
Darlene Clark Hine, author of Black Women in White: Racial Conflict and Cooperation in the Nursing Profession, 1890-1950
Review
"[Schultz] alone has assiduously mined a treasure trove of . . . information. . . . [This] superlative book is invaluable and should be read and considered by everyone interested in the Civil War."
Historian
Review
"Schultz has enriched the historiography on women's war experiences in general and on the formative role of gender . . . in this particular war."
Military History of the West
Review
"[An] absorbing and meticulously researched history, and a useful introduction to Civil War histories written in the early postwar period."
Metascience
Review
"This absorbing book recovers a largely unknown history of the twenty thousand women who served Confederate and Union hospitals during the Civil War. . . . [A] compelling . . . account that is both empathic and unsentimental toward [the] subjects. The result is a nuanced and thoughtful interpretation of women at the front."
Journal of Southern History
Review
"[A] thorough, insightful, and carefully written history. . . . Engrossing and enlightening."
American Historical Review
Review
Jane Schultz has written a well-researched book that tells a compelling story.
New England Journal of Medicine
Review
An example of the best aspects of modern Civil War scholarship.
Civil War Times
Review
Schultz gives us the most complete picture that we have of the women who broke with convention to become military relief workers.
Journal of Illinois History
Synopsis
Schultz provides a complete history of female relief workers in the Civil War era--around 20,000 women of diverse regional, race, and class backgrounds who worked as nurses, cooks, and laundresses in Union and Confederate hospitals.
About the Author
Jane E. Schultz is associate professor of English, American studies, and women's studies at Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis.
Table of Contents
ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction
Part I On Duty
1 Women at the Front
2 Getting to the Hospital
3 Adjusting to Hospital Life
4 Coming into Their Own
Part II The Legacy of War Work
5 After the War
6 Pensioning Women
7 Memory and the Triumphal Narrative
Appendix: A Note on Historiography
Notes
Bibliography
Index