Contributions to the Civil war
- Women in the south began aid societies to provide any necessities their soldiers needed.
- During the war women took on more less conventional job's to help support the war effort.
Women assumed the responsibility and management
of not only their homes but the farm's, plantation's and
land that their husbands owned.
Examples of jobs they proformed.
In the south a majority of women opened up their homes to the sick and wounded soldiers of the Confederate army.
It was also common for women to become nurses helping doctors during surgery on the battlefield and in hospitals that had been set up in local houses.
Some girls went to work in the textile factories as "needle women" manufacturing uniforms for the soldiers. Due to unsafe working conditions many women lost their lives while working with dangerous machinary.
women also became spies for the confederacy or joined volunteer regiments like the one seen in the background.
Interesting facts
- Not all women in the south suported the confederacy
- Many women who did support the confederacy often pushed their son's and husband's to join the army.
- Many elite white women pushed for seccession.
Obstacles in the confederate South
- Limited economic resourses
obstacles due to gender
- Many women who were the wives of deserters or Unionist were shuned and singled out as social outcasts.
- Women in the south who were unable to recieve reliefe took to looting and raiding.(April 1863)
- Elite white women who ran the plantation'shad to rely soley on their slaves.In plantations slave women had their work doubled ,as they had to assume their own work and the mens who were absent due to war.
Key Women
publcation's
- The Sarah Thompson Letters.(Duke University colection).
Carrie Berrys Diary(Atlanta history Center colection).