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In antebellum society, women were regarded as ideal nurses because of their sympathetic natures. However, they were expected to exercise their talents only in the home; nursing strange men in hospitals was considered inappropriate, if not indecent. Nevertheless, in defiance of tradition, Confederate women set up hospitals early in the Civil War and organized volunteers to care for the increasing number of sick and wounded soldiers. As a fledgling government engaged in a long and bloody war, the Confederacy relied on this female labor, which prompted a new understanding of women?s place in public life and a shift in gender roles.

Challenging the assumption that Southern women?s contributions to the war effort were less systematic and organized than those of Union women, Worth a Dozen Men looks at the Civil War as a watershed moment for Southern women. Female nurses in the South played a critical role in raising army and civilian morale and reducing mortality rates, thus allowing the South to continue fighting. They embodied a new model of heroic energy and nationalism, and came to be seen as the female equivalent of soldiers. Moreover, nursing provided them with a foundation for pro-Confederate political activity, both during and after the war, when gender roles and race relations underwent dramatic changes.

Worth a Dozen Men chronicles the Southern wartime nursing experience, tracking the course of the conflict from the initial burst of Confederate nationalism to the shock and sorrow of losing the war. Through newspapers and official records, as well as letters, diaries, and memoirs?not only those of the remarkable and dedicated women who participated, but also of the doctors with whom they served, their soldier patients, and the patients? families?a comprehensive picture of what it was like to be a nurse in the South during the Civil War emerges.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Acknowledgments(p. vii)
• Introduction(p. 1)
• 1 State and Private Hospitals(p. 17)
• 2 Matrons' Work(p. 35)
• 3 Becoming a Nurse(p. 57)
• 4 Ideal Nursing(p. 74)
• 5 Civilian Women and Confederate Medical Care(p. 106)
• 6 The Hospital Labor Dilemma(p. 134)
• 7 Conflict and Cooperation(p. 155)
• 8 Nursing and Personal Growth(p. 181)
• 9 Aftermath and Social Change(p. 204)
• Notes(p. 223)
• Bibliography(p. 293)
• Index(p. 307)

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CHOICE Review

Hilde (San Jose State Univ.) has carefully revised her dissertation to present here a "focus solely on Confederate nurses." These (white) women reflect many facets of Southern culture, including class biases and racism; but the author suggests that through their nursing practices (gratefully accepted by the wounded and their families), in private or Confederate States of America-run hospitals, the nursing women underwent an alteration--developed agency--that transformed their status and role during the bloody conflict and thereafter. Accepting patriarchy, they carved for themselves an enduring postwar patriotic legacy defending the Lost Cause (perpetuating its myth) and memorializing Confederate dead. In the Gilded Age and in years after, "White women became the vital caretakers of Confederate identity and, in doing so, a significant force in shaping Southern politics and postwar race relations." In short, they grew and contributed despite cultural and social limitations. This excellent book, for Civil War buffs and those with interests in women's history, might be read alongside Drew Gilpin Faust's This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (CH, Jan'09, 46-2859). Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries. P. D. Travis Texas Woman's University

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Libra R. Hilde is Assistant Professor of History at San José State University.