What Was The Role Of Women In The Civil War Essay

This investigation will explore the question “To what extent did the involvement of women in the Civil War further the Women’s Rights movement?” This paper will begin in 1848 in order to gain an understanding of the beginning of the feminist movement in America, which was marked by the Seneca Falls Convention, then discuss the entirety of the Civil War, from 1961 to 1965, and end in 1885 in order to view the full impact that the Civil War had on post-war progress for women’s rights. One of the most important sources to this investigation is History of Women’s Suffrage. This tertiary source was produced by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and Ida Husted Harper, all influential feminists who participated in the movement during the years 1848-1885 that are covered by these first three volumes. This origin is of value to the investigation, as all these women had firsthand experience in these events, allowing them to describe them and their direct effects accurately, especially because these books were published soon after, starting in 1881. The content is also valuable, combining excerpts from journals and other primary sources, describing the events directly, with some interpretation, showing the action’s
short-term significance. Additionally, the purpose is valuable because it is intended to look at the time period historically. However, this source is also limited.
First, the origin is limited because the text was written too soon after the events to fully understand their historical impact. Moreover, its editors were all members of the National Women Suffrage Association, white, and lived in the North, causing different perspectives, for instance the rival American Woman Suffrage Association or Southern women, to be unacknowledged. Additionally, the purpose of this book is greatly limiting; written to inspire more support for women’s suffrage, this text presents the movement’s history as a unified force accomplishing goals with little resistance; in reality, the movement had many different opinions and faced a lot of strife in accomplishing
goals. Another crucial source is Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust in 1996. Its origin is valuable because Faust was the Annenberg Professor at the University of Pennsylvania during publication (“Biography”), a prestigious position that illuminates her expertise in the history. Its content, is valuable for its focus on Southern women, who are often excluded from other sources; the book even includes primary source excerpts from many women’s diaries. Its purpose is valuable because it aims to present the history in a narrative, yet accurate, way which allows the events to be understood by a modern audience. On the other hand, this source is also limited. The text’s origin as being written over a century after the events limits its ability to be historically accurate, due to the destruction of information by the Confederacy and time. In fact, much of the book’s content relies on the individual women’s accounts; anecdotal evidence that may not hold true for all women. Additionally, its focus on the Civil War neglects any events not immediately before or after, content that is examined in the investigation.