Civil War, Reconstruction, and Transformation (Reminder: signing in to the Library first allows the links below to work best for you.)

Title Citation

Civil War (Don’t forget to sign in for easy access)

American Women’s History: A Very Short Introduction, Chapter 3 to p. 62 (top)

Women’s Hardship Petitions to the US Federal Government During the Civil War Read at least five petitions.

Video “She Ranks Me” excerpt from Ken Burns’ Civil War (Segment 19: 4:14 mins only)

Video Civil War Experience in Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women (5:08 mins only)

Susan Ware. 2015. American Women’s History: A Very Short Introduction. Very Short Introductions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://search-ebscohost-com.proxylib.csueastbay.e du/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e091sww&AN=92107 4&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Rebecca Jo Plant, Frances M. Clarke, fl. 2023 and Cayla Regas, fl. 2023 'Do not toss this letter away': Women's Hardship Petitions to the U.S. Federal Government during the Civil War(Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street, 2023), 100 page(s), Source: documents.alexanderstreet.com

Reconstruction

Frances Harper Reconstruction Speech Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Mrs. Frances Ellen Harper On Reconstruction, The Liberator, 3 March 1864. In documents.alexanderstreet.com. Accessed October 2, 2023.

How did White Women aid formerly enslaved people during and after the Civil War?

Read at least 5 documents (aka Primary Sources) in this collection.

Carol Faulkner. How Did White Women Aid Former Slaves during and after the Civil War, 1863-1891? 1999 (Binghamton, NY: State University of New York, Binghamton, 1999), 66 page(s),Source: documents.alexanderstreet.com

Darlene Clark Hine, “An Angle of Vision: Black Women and the United States Constitution.” (I tried a new way of linking. Let me know if it doesn’t work. Sign in to the Library!)

Darlene Clark Hine,“An Angle of Vision: Black Women and the United States Constitution, 1787-1987,” OAH Magazine of History 3, no. 1 (1988): 7–13. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25162573. Or https://www-jstor-org.proxylib.csueastbay.edu /stable/pdf/25162573

After Slavery Searching for Loved Ones in Wanted Ads

Ari Shapiro, Maureen Pau, “After Slavery Searching for Loved Ones in Wanted Ads,” Code Switch, National Public Radio, February 22, 2017. Accessed October 6, 2023.

Civil War, Reconstruction, and Transformation (Reminder: signing in to the Library first allows the links below to work best for you.)

Intersectionality

The Intersectionality Wars (skim not so much for the “wars” part, but to get an understanding of intersectionality as originally intended/applied by scholars/attorneys.) Kimberly Crenshaw’s foundational article is also linked in the article. Intersectionality is an important analytic term that is more effective and descriptive than ‘double oppression,’ an earlier way of understanding how race and gender impacted Black women. Once you have the concept, it’s important to think about its historical applications for the purposes of this class.

Jane Coaston, “The Intersectionality Wars,” Vox, May 28th, 2019, https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/20/ 18542843/intersectionality-conservatism-law- race-gender-discrimination . Accessed October 2, 2023.

Women & the Civil War, Continuity and Change

“The Sphere of a Woman,” illustration in Godey’s Lady’s Book, March 1850, https://americainclass.org/the-cult-of-domesticity/ accessed 10/2/23

I. Overview: Women at the Outset of the Civil War

A. Employment (not recorded in the Census!) Underreported 1. Social identity would tend to dominate over economic activity which was

incorporated into conceptions of women’s roles. a. Wives, mothers, daughters contributed the labor to run a household, including

productive activities like weaving, shoemaking, candle making etc.

2. The census takers didn’t ask

Here’s a quote from the Census Population Report, 1870

“It is taken for granted that every man has an occupation… It is precisely the other way with women and young children. The assumption is, as the fact generally is, that they are not engaged in remunerative employment. Those who are so engaged constitute the exception, and it follows from a plain principle of human nature, that assistant marshals will not infrequently forget or neglect to ask the question.”

Barry R. Chiswick, RaeAnn Halenda Robinson

IZA DP No. 13424: Women at Work in the Pre-Civil War United States: An Analysis of Unreported Family Workers, June 2020, https://docs.iza.org/dp13424.pdf, accessed 10/3/23

A. Employment continued 3. 11%-16% of women worked is the best count of mid 19th century until recently…This would of course in 1860 leave out enslaved women. It would also represent an undercount of:

a. Middle class women who sewed or were shopkeepers beside husbands b. Immigrant women and working class who took in boarders to help make ends meet (⅓-½ urban dwellers boarded or kept

boarders) c. Free-black women who took in laundry etc d. Single women who worked as servants e. Farmers wives and daughters f. Manufacturers’ wives and daughters (one reason we know they worked is that widows often carried on the business)

4 A recent economic study using microdata scoured from the 1860 census found=56% of women engaged in economic activity like that described above! That’s similar to the 58% figure for 2018

a. This suggests that the location of women’s work changed over the last century and a half, not the fact of women’s work… b. The largest undercounted occupation was “tailoresses” which could be done in a small family workshop

A. Employment (continued)

B. What other occupations were there?

1. Factory workers like the Lowell Mill Girls (to be discussed when we talk about working women and unions)

2. Teachers–women increasingly filled this role (Catharine Beecher’s goal) a. this was possible because the establishment of compulsory education increased demand for teachers

b. as women entered the field of primary education, wages went down, and men either looked to secondary schools or outside of teaching

c. women teachers made only 60% of what male teachers were paid

d.The Civil War would diminish the availability of young men available for the role…

I. B. Education

1. By the Civil War a. ½ American women were literate

2. They were using that education

a. ¼ of nation’s teachers female and 4/5s in Massachusetts

b. As Beecher had promised, women were "best and cheapest" in the nursery and the school room

3. Higher education was opening to women with the supply of male students down due to the draft and enlistment

I. C. Law

1 Married Women’s Property Acts

a. Mississippi passed one of the first acts but the “panic of 1837” was in part an explanation. A wife could hold but not control property. Goal–protect family assets from the ravages of unfettered capitalism, not empower women.

b. New York passed a stronger act, one campaigned for by Women’s Rights activists including Elizabeth Cady Stanton

He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.

He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.

He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes of divorce, in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given (Declaration of Sentiments, 1848)

C. Law

2. New York 1845–allowed women to own and control property

Property that women held at marriage shall not be subject to the disposal of her husband, nor be liable for his debts, and