1. To what extent did the contribution of women sustain both sides during the war? Essay question

2. Women contributed in 3 main areas  The Home Fronts  Nursing  Charitable organisations

3. Individual women  Some individual women have become famous in US History. Some examples; Belle Boyd ( a southern spy) Belle Boyd ( a southern spy) Elizabeth Blackwell (first female doctor) Elizabeth Blackwell (first female doctor) Rose Greenhowe (spy/emissary) Rose Greenhowe (spy/emissary) Harriet Tubman (black former slave/spy/underground railroad organiser) Harriet Tubman (black former slave/spy/underground railroad organiser) Pauline Cushman (actress/scout/spy) Pauline Cushman (actress/scout/spy)

4. Home Fronts  In the North, women helped put pressure on the government through abolitionist societies.  In the south, women had to manage farms and plantations, while their men were away fighting.

5. Politics  In the north, some women had influence politically; Frances Seward Frances Seward Kate Chase (right) Kate Chase (right) Mary Lincoln Mary Lincoln  Kate helped her father’s political career and Frances encouraged Seward’s abolitionism.

6. Mary Todd Lincoln  Mary Lincoln both helped and hindered her husband.  Some historians believe her to have been bipolar  She became increasingly distraught after her son Willie’s death. (Feb 20 th 1862)

7. Nursing  Elizabeth Blackwell was inspirational behind the US Sanitary Commission.  Selected nurses- better training and practical experience.  A Voluntary organisation  Hindered by men and its overseer, Dorothea Dix.

8. Freedman’s Aid Societies  Organised teachers and housing for newly freed slaves.  Charitable organisations  Women were involved as organisers, volunteers and of course, teachers.  Overtaken eventually by the need to deal with huge number of freed slaves and the government’s Freedman’s Bureau (1865).

9. Abolitionist Societies  Women were involved in Abolitionist Societies.  They helped keep freeing the slaves on the political agenda up to 1863.  It is debatable, however, how much Lincoln himself listened to them, as he found abolitionists an annoyance, at times.

10. In the South  Women encouraged volunteers  The women of New Orleans agitated General Butler’s (northern) occupying force, e.g. dumping chamber pots on soldiers’ heads.  Women had to manage farms/plantations- e.g. Mary Boykin Chesnut.