How Some Women Responded to the Long Civil War Era

Pat Young

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Featured Book Reviewer
Joined
Jan 7, 2013
Location
Long Island, NY
I have a new article on the Emerging Civil War site on how Black, immigrant, and Radical Republican women responded to the challenges of the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. From organizing unions to running refugee relief, these women did not conform to the "ideals" of Victorian Domesticity. Let me know what you think.
https://emergingcivilwar.com/2021/0...hood-during-the-civil-war-and-reconstruction/
 
I read the article, but have a limited grasp of it all until the Woodrow Wilson era. It is difficult for me to perceive the hardships faced and use some rule of measure to judge it with, without forming a bias against the times that were then.
Lubliner.
 
Great piece. It's easy for people to forget that the Victorian idea of sheltered womanhood was only possible for those affluent enough to allow women to eschew all but the most "genteel" of labors. And in each of those houses were hard-working women, usually immigrants, who had little ease of any sort.

I'm especially glad to see you mention Kate Mullany! I was at the ceremony when her house was put on the National Register. She had a huge impact in her time but is rarely mentioned today.
 
Enjoyed the article but I couldn't help but notice that Susan B. Anthony had a falling out over Kate Mullany's inclusiveness of men in her fight for work reforms. The same thing had happened between Anthony and Frederick Douglass when they both were fighting against the New York state constitution's property qualification for Black voters, but when it came time to lobby the state legislature to amend the constitution, Anthony suddenly saw the Black man as competing with women for legislative action on voting and stated that she "would sooner cut off [her] right hand than ask the ballot for the black man and not for women." To add insult to injury, she went on to claim that women were more intelligent than Black men.
 
Enjoyed the article but I couldn't help but notice that Susan B. Anthony had a falling out over Kate Mullany's inclusiveness of men in her fight for work reforms. The same thing had happened between Anthony and Frederick Douglass when they both were fighting against the New York state constitution's property qualification for Black voters, but when it came time to lobby the state legislature to amend the constitution, Anthony suddenly saw the Black man as competing with women for legislative action on voting and stated that she "would sooner cut off [her] right hand than ask the ballot for the black man and not for women." To add insult to injury, she went on to claim that women were more intelligent than Black men.
She had a singular focus. She doesn't always come off well under close scrutiny.
 
Enjoyed the article but I couldn't help but notice that Susan B. Anthony had a falling out over Kate Mullany's inclusiveness of men in her fight for work reforms. The same thing had happened between Anthony and Frederick Douglass when they both were fighting against the New York state constitution's property qualification for Black voters, but when it came time to lobby the state legislature to amend the constitution, Anthony suddenly saw the Black man as competing with women for legislative action on voting and stated that she "would sooner cut off [her] right hand than ask the ballot for the black man and not for women." To add insult to injury, she went on to claim that women were more intelligent than Black men.
Mullany had a history of bringing her union out in support of other male dominated union, and of expecting reciprocity in return. She usually got it.
 
Enjoyed the article but I couldn't help but notice that Susan B. Anthony had a falling out over Kate Mullany's inclusiveness of men in her fight for work reforms. The same thing had happened between Anthony and Frederick Douglass when they both were fighting against the New York state constitution's property qualification for Black voters, but when it came time to lobby the state legislature to amend the constitution, Anthony suddenly saw the Black man as competing with women for legislative action on voting and stated that she "would sooner cut off [her] right hand than ask the ballot for the black man and not for women." To add insult to injury, she went on to claim that women were more intelligent than Black men.
Mullany had a history of bringing her union out in support of other male dominated union, and of expecting reciprocity in return. She usually got it.
That seems to be a subtle and efficient strategy!
Lubliner.
Quite
 
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