by Gail Collins
When she traveled…We Are Your Sisters, Dorothy Sterling, ed., pp. 280–83.
“KEPT MOIST AND BRIGHT WITH THE OIL OF KINDNESS”
“Mrs. Stowe betrays…” Hedrick, p. 232.
Caroline Lee Hentz… Helen Papashvily, All the Happy Endings, pp. 83–86.
Mary Hamilton Campbell… Fox-Genovese, p. 134.
A Southern slave owner… D. White, p. 58.
“THERE IS MANY THINGS TO DO ABOUT A PLACE
THAT YOU MEN DON’T THINK OF”
The classic work about white women on Southern plantations before the war is Catherine Clinton’s The Plantation Mistress. For the relation between these women and their servants, see Within the Plantation Household by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese.
When Anne Nichols… Kierner, p. 177.
“It is quite out of…” Clinton, The Plantation Mistress, p. 176.
John Steele… Clinton, The Plantation Mistress, p. 75.
“I would willingly…” Clinton, The Plantation Mistress, p. 29.
Southern men went to spas… Clinton, The Plantation Mistress, p. 151.
“I WOULD NOT CARE IF THEY ALL DID GO”
Charles Eliot Norton… Ann Firor Scott, The Southern Lady, p. 50.
“In all my life…” C. Vann Woodward, Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, p. 255.
A New Orleans slave… Larry Gara, The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Underground Railroad, p. 58.
Susan Davis Hutchinson… Fox-Genovese, pp. 144–45.
“I sometimes think…” Scott, The Southern Lady, p. 47.
Sarah Gayle… Fox-Genovese, pp. 144–45.
Caroline Merrick… Fox-Genovese, pp. 144–45.
“Slavery degrades…” Virginia Burr, The Secret Eye, p. 169.
Catherine Hammond…The Hammonds of Redcliffe, Carol Bleser, ed., pp. 10–11.
“God forgive us…” Woodward, p. 29.
CHAPTER 9: THE CIVIL WAR
Although there are a disproportionate number of good books about white Southern women during the Civil War, the one I kept going back to while writing this chapter was Mothers of Invention by Drew Gilpin Faust. Two other books I relied on heavily were Victoria Bynum’s Unruly Women: The Politics of Social and Sexual Control in the Old South and Mary Elizabeth Massey’s Women in the Civil War—an early book by women’s history standards but still extremely useful. They’re all very readable.
“MY STATE IS OUT OF THE UNION”
This section, like many to come, draws particularly on the work of Drew Gilpin Faust.
“Politics engrosses…” Faust, pp. 11–14.
According to the Southern Illustrated News … Faust p. 46.
“DOES SHE MEAN TO TAKE CARE OF ME—OR TO MURDER ME?”
One of the reasons there are so many good histories of Southern women may be that they were such gifted diarists. The most famous is that of Mary Chesnut, a well-to-do wife of a Confederate politician. It’s a great read in C. Vann Woodward’s Mary Chesnut’s Civil War.
Keziah Brevard… Faust, p. 57.
Lewis B. Norwood… Bynum, p. 115.
The wealthy Mary Chestnut… Woodward, p. 199.
“I dread…” Faust, p. 76.
One Georgia slave-owning family… Hunter, p. 19.
Kate Foster… Faust, p. 78.
“THE WOMEN ARE AS BAD AS MEN DOWN HERE”
A book I relied on for much of this section was Bynum’s Unruly Women.
In New Bern… Faust, p. 31.
A soldier’s pay… Bynum, p. 134.
“I do not like…” Faust, p. 47.
“The women are…” Bynum, p. 133.
“The self-sacrifice has vanished…” Faust, pp. 243–45.
“WATCH OVER THEIR DAUGHTERS AS WELL AS THEIR SONS”
Although men still… Ginzberg, pp. 157–58.
The necessary supplies… Alfred Bloor, “Letter to Senator Sumner,” Women’s Work in the War.
In 1863, when Irish… Ryan, Women in Public, pp. 148–51.
“WERE THEY THE SAME SCHOOL GIRLS OF 1861?”
Amy Clarke… Massey, pp. 79–81.
Rose O’Neal Greenhow… Ishbel Ross’s biographical sketch in Notable American Women, James and James, eds., vol. 2, pp. 89–90
Belle Boyd: Thomas Robson Hay in James and James, eds., vol. 1, pp. 215–17.
More than 250,000 people… Massey, p. 291.
As the Union forces… Faust, pp. 43–44.
In Vicksburg… Massey, p. 225.
An Atlanta resident… Scott, The Southern Lady, p. 86.
While marching to Savannah… Hunter, p. 20.
Emma Steward… Sterling, p. 241.
“THE BEST THING THAT COULD HAVE TAKEN PLACE FOR ME”
“Nothing looks funnier…” Faust, pp. 224–27.
Southern women began… Faust, pp. 88–91.
In 1864, when the note signers… Massey, pp. 140–42.
In the North… Massey, pp. 132–38.
“ALMOST WILD ON THE SUBJECT OF HOSPITAL NURSING”
At least 3,000 women… Clinton, The Other Civil War, p. 182.
“Our women appear…” Baxandall and Gordon, eds., pp. 76–77.
“I will not agree…” Faust, p. 97.
Dorothea Dix… Mary Gardner Holland, Our Army Nurses, p. iii.
One young woman… Massey, pp. 45–47.
Elida Rumsey Fowle… Massey, p. 82.
“I AM A U.S. SOLDIER…AND THEREFORE
NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SUSCEPTIBLE TO FEAR”
Except where otherwise noted, this section is based on information in Elizabeth Brown Pryor’s Clara Barton, Professional Angel.
Katherine Wormeley: Judith Ann Giesberg, “Katherine Wormeley and the U.S. Sanitary Commission,” Nursing History Review 3 (1955), pp. 43–53.
An army surgeon… Massey, pp. 48–49.
“A HOSPITAL HAS NONE OF THE COMFORTS OF HOME”
Anyone interested in nursing during the Civil War—from the Union perspective at least—should read Our Army Nurses: Stories from Women in the Civil War by Mary Gardner Holland.
Phoebe Yates Pember… Massey, p. 56.
Mary Rutledge Fogg… Faust, pp. 94–95.
“Nobody chided me…” Lee Ann White, “The Civil War as a Crisis of Gender,” in Catherine Clinton’s Divided Houses, p. 17.
“Are the women of the South…” Faust, pp. 101–2.
“I have had men die…” Holland, pp. 84–94.
Anna McMahon… Holland, p. 132.
Rebecca Wiswell… Holland, p. 295.
“We all know…” Kristie Ross, “Arranging a Doll’s House,” in Clinton’s Divided Houses, p. 102.
Francis Bacon… Ginzberg, p. 145.
Doctors on both sides… Barbara Mann Wall, “Called to a Mission of Charity,” Nursing History Review 6 (1998), pp. 85–113.
“GIRLS HAVE MARRIED MEN THEY WOULD NEVER
HAVE GIVEN A THOUGHT OF”
“My happy life!…” The Civil War Diary of Sarah Morgan, Charles East, ed., p. 29.
In what the whole South came… Massey, p. 257.
There were 80,000 widows… Scott, The Southern Lady, p. 92.
“Girls have married…” Massey, p. 257.
Sarah Morgan wrote… East, ed., p. 62.
One newspaper concluded… White in Clinton, Divided Houses, p. 19.
Jefferson Davis… See Joan Cashin’s essay on Varina Davis in Portraits of American Women, Barker-Benfield and Clinton, eds., pp. 259–77.
“I will not be a dependent…” Massey, p. 110.
By 1883, an Alabama… Scott, The Southern Lady, p. 111.
“IF I STAY HERE I’LL NEVER KNOW I’M FREE”
Like the preceding chapter, most stories about slavery in America stop on the happy ending. Tera Hunter’s To ’Joy My Freedom is a good antidote for that. Except where otherwise noted, this section is based on pp. 29–50 of that book.
Patience, an ex-slave… Jones, p. 51.
In South Carolina an ex-slave named Sue… D. White, p
p. 170–71
“Slavery to our Islanders…” Jones, pp. 69–70.
“When I married my wife…” D. White, p. 184.
The white community, however… Jones, pp. 58–60.
CHAPTER 10: WOMEN GO WEST
Perhaps because they were so lonely for home, pioneer women were very generous in leaving behind piles of letters and journals. As a result, tons of books are available on the subject of women settlers in the West. My overall favorite book on this period is Frontier Women, by Julie Roy Jeffrey.
“I THOUGHT WHERE HE COULD GO I COULD GO”
Anyone interested in the story of the migration west should begin with the classic Women and Men on the Overland Trail, by John Mack Faragher.
Nancy Kelsey: Jo Ann Chartier and Chris Enss, With Great Hope: Women of the California Gold Rush, pp. 13–22.
The Daily Missouri Republican advised… Faragher, Women and Men on the Overland Trail, p. 7.
“I would not be left…” Luzena Wilson, Luzena Stanley Wilson, 49er, p. 1.
Bethenia Owens-Adair… B. Owens-Adair, Dr. Owens Adair, p. 493.
“Some women have very little help…” Robert Munkres, “Wives, Mothers, Daughters: Women’s Life on the Road West,” Annals of Wyoming (October 1970), pp. 189–224.
One pioneer recounted… Lillian Schlissel, Women’s Diaries of the Western Journey, p. 57.
James Clyman… Dee Brown, The Gentle Tamers, p. 104.
Frances Grummond… Dee Brown, pp. 39–40.
“WE SAW LONG BRAIDS OF GOLDEN HAIR”
“Very dusty roads”…Covered Wagon Women, Kenneth Holmes, ed., pp. 131, 142–43.
“Boxes and trunks…” Holmes, ed., pp. 257–58.
“Days passed before…” Dee Brown, p. 209.
Juliette Brier… Jo Ann Levy, They Saw the Elephant, pp. 26–29.
Mrs. Samuel Young… Schlissel, p. 46.
“If there were any graves…” Martha Gay Masterson, One Woman’s West, Lois Barton, ed., pp. 40–41.
One pioneer remembered… Dee Brown, p. 37.
Janette Riker… Dee Brown, pp. 40–41.
“HE WAS IN GREAT HASTE TO MARRY
TO SAVE A HALF SECTION OF LAND”
“Even I have…” B. Wilson, p. 32.
Irwin, Colorado, had… Anne Butler, Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery, p. 53.
The wife of an army officer… Dee Brown, p. 222.
Martha Gay Masterson… Barton, ed., pp. 54–55.
When Elizabeth Gunn… Jeffrey, Frontier Women, p. 156.
“In the short space…” Louise Amelia Clappe, The Shirley Letters, p. 133.
“I like this wild…” Clappe, pp. 177–78.
“MORE ACTIVE AND INDUSTRIOUS THAN THE MEN”
Just as we’re blessed with a bounty of studies about white women in the West, we’re starved for information about Mexican Americans. My single greatest regret in doing this book was my inability to follow their trail further. But new studies are coming in every day, and for those interested in the subject, I’d recommend beginning with Douglas Monroy’s Thrown Among Strangers: The Making of Mexican Culture in Frontier California and Richard Griswold del Castillo’s La Familia : Chicano Families in the Urban Southwest.
“Their manners toward…” Del Castillo, p. 44.
“Riding on horseback…” Monroy, p. 151.
Indian women, wrote… Monroy, p. 9.
“She never let them…” Virginia Marie Bouvier, Women and the Conquest of California, p. 84.
Mexican soldiers had no… Monroy, p. 29.
After the women were raped… Monroy, p. 83.
Narcissa Prentiss Whitman… See Michael Goldberg’s “Breaking New Ground” in Nancy Cotted, No Small Courage, pp. 209–12.
“I WENT INTO THE SPORTING LIFE FOR BUSINESS REASONS”
If you’re interested in this perpetually interesting subject, start with Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery, by Anne Butler.
The Home Missionary … Dee Brown, p. 89.
“I went into…” Brandon Marie Miller, Buffalo Gals, pp. 35–36.
A Frenchman named Albert Bernard… Levy, They Saw the Elephant, p. 163.
On paydays… Anne Seagraves, Soiled Doves, pp. 60–61.
The most desperate stories involved Chinese women… Many Chinese American women in the nineteenth-century West weren’t prostitutes, and the attempt to portray every Asian woman as a brothel worker was one of the tactics used to keep the door locked against female immigration. For the story of all those other women, see George Anthony Peffer’s excellent If They Don’t Bring Their Women Here. For a brief survey of Chinese immigrant women in the nineteenth century, see Lucie Cheng Hirata in Women of America: A History, edited by Carol Berkin and Mary Beth Norton, pp. 224–44.
Lilac Chen… Jeffrey, Frontier Women, p. 149.
Toward the end of the century… Seagraves, pp. 135–42.
“A SMART WOMAN CAN DO VERY WELL IN THIS COUNTRY”
One of the most entertaining and interesting books on the women of early California settlements is They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush, by Jo Ann Levy.
Luzena Wilson… Levy, pp. 91–107.
A woman wrote from California… Dee Brown, p. 253.
One pioneer recalled… Levy, p. 93.
Martha Gay Masterson… Barton, ed., p. xii.
One woman was troubled… Levy, p. 45.
Nellie Pooler Chapman… Chartier and Enss, pp. 79–83.
“A smart woman…” Jeffrey, Frontier Women, p. 154.
Charley Parkhurst… Levy, pp. 122–23.
Lotta Crabtree… There’s a portrait of Lotta in Chartier and Enss’s With Great Hope.
Legend has it… Dee Brown, pp. 168–69.
“STANDING ERECT UPON THE BACK OF HER UNSADDLED HORSE”
This section is based on Glenda Riley’s The Life and Legacy of Annie Oakley, and Calamity Jane by Roberta Beed Sollid.
But the real creator… Doris Faber, Calamity Jane, Her Life and Legend, pp. 38–40.
“SHE PUT HER ARMS AROUND A TREE AND HUGGED IT”
It’s either something about the kind of women who go to Kansas or the kind of things Kansas did to the women, but the most amazing books about women farmers on the plains all seem to be about that particular state. My favorite is Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier, by Joanna Stratton.
Julia Lovejoy… Michael Fellman, “Julia Lovejoy Goes West,” Western Humanities Review (Summer 1977), p. 236.
One girl who lived… Stratton, p. 53.
Julia Lovejoy found… Fellman, p. 233.
One female pioneer… Dee Brown, p. 192.
“The wind whistled…” Stratton, p. 52.
“When our covered wagon…” B. Miller, p. 24.
Another woman begged… Stratton, p. 80.
“Many a time my mother…” Stratton, p. 82.
“They commenced on a…” Dee Brown, p. 208.
Another woman remembered… Stratton, p. 103.
A visitor to frontier Illinois… John Mack Faragher, Sugar Creek, p. 90.
Matilda Lockhart, who was taken… Dee Brown, pp. 19–20.
George Custer… Elizabeth Custer, Boots and Saddles, pp. 56–57.
Susan Parrish… Schlissel, p. 69.
The Lakota called 1844… Jeffrey, Frontier Women, p. 37.
Pretty Shield… Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith, Pioneer Women, p. 66.
“If women could go…” Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, Life Among the Piutes, p. 53.
A Mrs. Miller… Jeffrey, Frontier Women, p. 72.
“I CANNOT MAKE A FRIEND LIKE MOTHER OUT OF HENRY”
Although it isn’t specifically about women, one book that anyone interested in the history of plains farmers has to read is Bad Land: An American Romance by Jonathan Raban.
In Topeka…Plains Woman: The Diary of Martha Farnsworth, Marlene and Haskell Springer, eds., p. xiii.
A Texas woman… James Featon, “Women on the Staked Plains,” in At Home on the Ran
ge, John Wunder, ed., p. 241.
“I have been very blue”… Jeffrey, Frontier Women, p. 73.
Margaret Armstrong… Harriette Andreadis, “True Womanhood Revisited: Women’s Private Writing in Nineteenth Century Texas,” Journal of the Southwest (Summer 1989), p. 185.
Annette Botkin… Stratton, pp. 86–87.
Jessie Hill Rowland… Stratton, pp. 135–36.
Susanna Townsend… Levy, p. 62.
Bertha Anderson… Peavy and Smith, p. 30.
At a luncheon… Dee Brown, p. 48.
Louise Clappe’s remote… Clappe, p. 90.
“Someone had said that…” Stratton, p. 68.
“BESIEGED BY A CROWD OF MEN, ALL ANXIOUS TO EMPLOY HER”
They were called Exodusters…Exodusters, by Nell Irvin Painter, covers this little-known piece of African American history.
“These sable workwomen…” Painter, Exodusters, p. 55.
“The scenery to me…” William Katz, Black Women of the Old West, p. 60.
“In the earliest days…” B. Miller, p. 26.
“I ain’t got…” Katz, p. 73.
Mary Ann Pleasant… A full portrait of Mary Ann Pleasant by Quintard Taylor is included in By Grit and Grace: Eleven Women Who Shaped the American West, Glenda Riley and Richard Etulain, eds.
Clara Brown: Except when noted, information on Clara Brown comes from Kathleen Bruyn’s “Aunt” Clara Brown: Story of a Black Pioneer. in the words of a local paper… Katz, p. 25.
When she died in 1885… Katz, p. 26.
“WE NOW EXPECT QUITE AN IMMIGRATION
OF LADIES TO WYOMING”
Anna Dickinson: The story of Anna Dickinson and Wyoming is told in T. A. Larson’s History of Wyoming, pp. 80–82.
Esther McQuigg Morris: See the profile by Gene Gressley in Notable American Women, James and James, eds., vol. 2, p. 583.
William Bright… Larson, History of Wyoming, pp. 91–92.
“We now expect…” Larson, History of Wyoming, p. 80.
Esther Morris’s son… Michael Massie, “Reform Is Where You Find It: The Roots of Woman Suffrage in Wyoming,” Annals of Wyoming (Spring 1990).
“Won’t the irrepressible…” Larson, History of Wyoming, p. 83.
“Many ladies have voted…” Dee Brown, p. 245.
“There was plenty of drinking…” Larson, History of Wyoming, p. 85.
“We will remain out of the union…” T. A. Larson, “Petticoats at the Polls,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly (April 1953), p. 79.