Busy Hands: Images of the Family in the Northern Civil War Effort

by Patricia Richard

Overview

Focusing on middle-class women’s contributions to the northern Civil War effort, Patricia Richard shows how women utilized their power as moral agents to shape the way men survived the ravages of war. Busy Hands investigates the ways in which white and African American women used images of family and domestic life in their relief efforts to counter the effects of prostitution, gambling, profanity, and drinking, threatening men’s postwar civilian fitness.

Drawing on letters, diaries, and memoirs of Civil War nurses, sanitary workers, soldiers, and the soldiers’ aid societies, Richard develops a new perspective on domestic influence on the war, as women sought to save soldiers from the dangers of the military world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823223008
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	10/30/2003
Series:	The North's Civil War , #26
Edition description:	1
Pages:	335
Product dimensions:	6.25(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Patricia Richard is Assistant Professor of History at Metropolitan State College of Denver.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	vii
	Abbreviations	ix
	Introduction	1
1.	The Moral Source: The Family During the Civil War	13
2.	Corruption Abounds: Reactions to the Soldier's Life	40
3.	"In a Most Tangible Form": Northern Women Respond to the Nurturing Needs of the Civil War Soldier	87
4.	"Listen Ladies One and All": Soldiers Search for the Comforts of Home Through Correspondence Ads	138
5.	The Communal Contract: Northern Women Care for the Union Family Through Aid Societies	176
6.	"The Kind Attentions of Woman": Female Nurses Bring Home to the Hospital	222
7.	The Soldiers' Home and the Journey Homeward	288
	Bibliography	307
	Index	325