Women's Wartime Work: Nursing and the Fight for Suffrage, 1861-1920

Women's Wartime Work: Nursing and the Fight for Suffrage, 1861-1920

Hill, Zoe

2018

War presents an opportunity for change. One example of such a change was women serving as nurses in the Civil War and World War I. Wartime nursing allowed women to upend preconceived ideas about gender and a woman’s role in society. Nurses serving in the Civil War laid the foundation for nurses in World War I to serve and use that service to demand enfranchisement. Whether these women acted with the intention to change society or not, their actions had an impact on the lives of future generations of women. Expanding the historical narrative to show this trajectory requires adding the voices of women who served during each war. This paper looks at the lives of four women, two serving with the Union Army in the Civil War, and two serving with Allied Forces in World War I, to help shape the history of the Suffrage Movement in America.

Simmons College (Boston, Mass.)

1 PDF (56 Pages)

English

Masters Theses