Women in the Civil War: They Changed America for Good

Explore the many roles of women during the American Civil War in a talk by Civil War re-enactor Brenda Collins.

 During the tumultuous four-year conflict, which claimed the lives of over 600,000 men, many women filled much needed but traditional roles on the home front, supplying food, clothing, and medical supplies to the troops. “I well remember as a little girl going with my mother, to the vestry of the Pilgrim Church to work for the wounded soldiers," wrote one Harwich girl. "Perched on a board window-seat, I tried to help scrape lint from old linen, while the ladies made bandages, flannel shirts and other warm garments, and the elderly ladies knit socks and mittens."  Others worked in hospitals serving a growing need for professional nursing.  Collins will also discuss how the roles of women widened, as ideas of social consciousness, developed by women, influenced sanitation, health care, suffrage, temperance, the arts and politics.