Tara_Nurses

=Nurses of the Civil War=

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Neutral Nurses
During the Civil War, there were Confederate nurses and Union nurses, however, there were also Neutral nurses. There were multiple organized parties of these Neutral Nurses who helped both the Confederate and Union soldiers. Clara Barton originally was a Union Nurse when she first became a part of the Civil War. Nevertheless, by 1862, she had gathered her own party of women. These women brought medical supplies to both Confederate and Union armies. They also took care of and tended to soldiers of both sides of the War.

Nurses' Uniforms
Dorothea Dix was appointed the job to decide how the Nurses were to dress. She decided that their clothing should be black or brown dresses. The dresses would need to be simple with no definite waste line, no ruffles, and no hoop skirts. The nurses would also need to wear a white apron and a simple hat to keep their hair out of the way. The dresses were not provided for by the army so not all the nurses were dressed identically. Dix also decided that the women should be at least thirty years old and plain looking. Dix was an important part of establishing concrete rules and regulations for the nurses of the Civil War.

Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell
Elizabeth was born in 1821 and her younger sister was born in 1826. They were born in England and their father was a sugar refiner. Both sisters were among the first women to get medical degrees. They founded their own hospital and medical school and encouraged other women to become doctors. The two sisters and their family came to the U.S.A. in 1833. Elizabeth had to support her family by teaching when their father died. Elizabeth was inspired to become a doctor by a friend who was dying of a uterine disorder and was too embarrassed to tell a male doctor and didn't get the right medical help in time. Elizabeth then started medical school in 1847 and later Emily finished her medical education in 1854. During the Civil War, Elizabeth taught nurses to support the Union Army. In 1868, Elizabeth founded Women's Medical College of the New York Infirmary. Elizabeth went back to England in 1869 and Emily was left in charge of Women's Medical College. Elizabeth became a professor of gynecology at the London School of Medicine for Women. Emily worked at the Medical College until 1900 until her retirement. Both sisters died in 1910. = =

Clara Barton
Clara Barton was born in 1821 in Oxford, MA. Her mother was an anti-slavery feminist and her father was a successful farmer and state legislator. He also was in the American Revolution. Barton founded the American Red Cross and was its president for almost 20 years. Before that, however, Barton was first a teacher. Then, in 1854 she worked in the Patent Office and became one of the first female government employees. She lost this job under President Buchanan but got it back when Abraham Lincoln went into office. During the Civil War, Barton's strength was in raising funds and collecting supplies for the Union Army. She did her work through private sources and not the government. Barton used the media to raise awareness of the Union Army's needs. She distributed supplies at the battle front and when she asked for permission from an official of the War Department to go help wounded soldiers at the battlefield, she was not allowed. She persevered and began to tend to Confederate and Union Soldiers. Barton died in 1921.

Dorothea Dix
[|Dorothea Lynde Dix] was born in the year of 1802 in Hampden, Maine. Her parents were Joseph Dix and Mary Biglow Dix. When she was very young, her relationship with her parents weakened she ran away when she was ten years old. Even though she didn’t have a formal education, a little while later when she was fourteen, Dix opened a school. She was known by her students to be overly strict. In 1821, Dix settled in Boston, MA and stayed with her grandmother and opened another school for young women. By 1824 she had earned the reputation of being a leading school mistress. Also, in 1824 she wrote //Conversation on Common Things//, the structure in the book being a dialogue of a mother and her daughter. During the same year she started visiting jails in MA and documented the condition of the mentally ill. She went on to work very hard to make the conditions of the mentally ill better. The next year, Dix wrote her memoir titled //Legislature of Massachusetts//, in which she wrote about the horrible conditions the mentally ill people were kept in. This book was published in 1843. In 1861 Dix was given the responsibility organizing military hospitals, aquiring supplies, and recruiting nurses for the Union Army. In 1865 she went back to Boston and went on with helping to improve the conditions of the mentally ill. Then, in 1881, Dix went to visit the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum, but she became very sick with a pain in her lung relating to repeat bouts of malaria. Dix later died in the hospital whose founding was one of her own accomplishments in the year of 1887. = =

Kate Cummings
Cummings was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, between 1828 and 1835. In the 1840s her father, David Cummings, moved the family to Montreal, Canada, and then to Mobile, Alabama. Most of her family left as the civil war started, except for her and her father. As the war intensified and battlefield casualties rose, Cummings joined the home front relief effort, gathering supplies for hospitals. Even though her family objected, she was determined to volunteer as a nurse at the front. She finally made the position and joined 40 other women who ventured into Corinth, Mississippi, after the April 1862 battle of Shiloh, in which more than 23,700 Confederate and Union soldiers were killed or wounded or went missing. In the beginning of the Civil War the confederate medical care was smaller and disorganized. Cummings and her women helped fill the empty spaces where the Confederate’s lacked medical care. At the end of the war, Cummings published her diary in 1866 as //A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate // //Army of Tennessee from the Battle of Shiloh to the End of the War: With Sketches of Life and Character, and Brief Notices of Current Events During That Period // . After a life dedicated purely to the soul and spirit of the confederacy, Cummings died on June 7, 1909

=Bibliography=

Sources:
"Barton, Clara." __A to Z of American Women Leaders and Activists, A to Z__. Online. Facts On File. //American History Online//. 9 May 2010.

 "Blackwell, Elizabeth and Emily." __American Social Leaders and Activists, American Biographies__. Online. Facts On File. //American History Online//. 9 May 2010.

"Dix, Dorothea." __American Social Leaders and Activists, American Biographies__. Online. Facts On File. //American History Online//. 13 May 2010.

"Kate Cumming." //Encyclopedia of Alabama//. Web. 12 May 2010. .

 Monroe, Heather. __Civil War Nurse Uniform Description__. eHow. 9 May 2010. 

Picture Credits:
"Barton, Clara." Online. Facts On File. //American History Online//. 9 May 2010.

"Dix, Dorothea." Online. Facts On File. //American History Online//. 9 May 2010.

Arendt, Britta. __Female Nurses of the Civil War: How They Dressed__. 2002. Tripod. 9 May 2010. .

2010. 12 May 2010. .