New and Noteworthy: Women and the Civil War: A Northern Army at Home

Army At Home: Women and the Civil War on the Northern Home Front, Judith Giesberg, University of North Carolina Press, 23 illustrations, 232pp., notes, bibliography, index, $35.00.

Giesberg's book covers many aspects of women's lives on the northern home front: the female employees of U.S. army arsenals two of which exploded and killed their workers; handling the bodies of soldiers shipped home; being members of mobs that rioted in major cities; middle class women having to find employment; and widowhood with children in the cities and on farms. Introducing readers to women whose Civil War experiences have long been ignored, Judith Giesberg examines the lives of working-class women in the North, for whom home front was a battlefield of its own.

Black and white working-class women managed farms that had been left without a male head of household, worked in munitions factories, made uniforms, and located and cared for injured or dead soldiers. As they became more active in their new roles, they became visible as political actors, writing letters, signing petitions, moving (or refusing to move) from their homes, and confronting civilian and military officials.

Black and white working class women endured and conquered uncertainty, instability, and heart breaking losses. The demands of providing for families required women to manage farms, work in munitions and uniform factories, and tend to husbands who lost a leg or an arm. As women became more active in their new roles, these women became more visible as political actors by writing letters, signing petitions, moving from homes or resisting being tossed out on the street from their homes, and confronting civilian and military male authority.

At the heart of the book are stories of women who fought the draft in New York and Pennsylvania, protested segregated streetcars in San Francisco and Philadelphia, and demanded a living wage in the needle trades and safer conditions at the Federal arsenals where they labored. Giesberg challenges readers to think about women and children who were caught up in the military conflict but nonetheless refused to become its collateral damage. She offers a dramatic reinterpretation of how America’s Civil War reshaped the lived experience of race and gender and brought swift and lasting changes to working-class family life.

Giesberg examines the lives of working-class women in the North, where black and white working-class women managed farms that had been left without a male head of household, worked in munitions factories, made uniforms, and located and cared for injured or dead soldiers. As they became more active in their new roles, they became visible as political actors, writing letters, signing petitions, moving (or refusing to move) from their homes, and confronting civilian and military officials. Giesberg provides a dramatic reinterpretation of how America’s Civil War reshaped the lived experience of race and gender and brought swift and lasting changes to working-class family life.

Text Source: The index and the cover flaps of the book.
Image Caption: The Allegheny Arsenal where on September 17, 1862 seventy-eight workers, mainly women and children, were killed by an explosion.