Women in the Civil War

Creative writing

Write a newspaper article by a London journalist on women in the American Civil War. Your article might include the following: effect of war on daily life (such as inflation, shortages, deaths of family members, and military occupation), their perception of enemy armies, perception of enemy civilians, role (if any) they played in the "war effort," if their attitude about the war or its underlying causes changed over the course of the war.

or

Traditional essay

To what extent did the war "expand" women's traditional sphere of home and family? Consider both the effects of the war on their daily lives and their involvement in the war effort.

Use this class period to search the Valley of the Shadow archives, take notes, and write a basic outline for your paper.

After you have shared your findings with the other teams in your group, edit your outline as you feel necessary.

Your assignment for tonight is to turn your outline into a paper.

Research suggestions:

• Skim the diary of Nancy Emerson (in Part II: The Civil War Years, Letters and Diaries, Additional Civil War Personal Papers).

• Look up Nancy Emerson and her family in the Augusta census manuscripts (in Part I: The Eve of the War, Public Records). First, search for her name only. Then search by her family number only. Who appears to be the head of that household? Look him up in the slave owner census (in Part I: The Eve of the War, Public Records, Census).

• Skim the diaries of Franklin County women (in Part II: The War Years, Letters and Diaries, Additional Civil War Letters).

• Read the articles about women in the war in the Newspaper Transcriptions by Topic section of the archive (in Part II: The War Years, Newspapers).

• Use the Newspaper Abstract Search Page (in Part II: The War Years, Newspapers, Newspaper Search Page) to search both counties' newspapers for the following key words: "ladies," "female," "women," "girls," "Miss," and "Mrs." and other words you think might be useful. Once you get your list of dates, click the date to find the abstracts. Use the browser's "find" function to find the article with the word you had searched by.