Summary Of Elenor Flexner's Century Of The Struggle

Women in the nineteenth century were beginning to liberate themselves. Thus, when the Civil War came along, many women were not content to sit home and set up fund-raisers for the cause. According to the book “Century Of The Struggle” by Elenor Flexner “The influx of women into teaching and their entrance into government offices data from Civil War. Thousands more broke away from stove and laundry tub to look for work in the cities or to do the heavy manual labor required to keep the family homestead going as recorder by Anna Howard Shaw”(106). As a result women began to unchain there chains and began to become fearless. Mrs. Flexner gives us some great examples of women that help and contributed the soldiers during the Civil War (110); for instance: Dorothea Dix known for her work in reforming prisons and insane asylums, at the age of sixty, head of the nursing service in the Union army hospitals(110). The “Mothers” Bickerdyke and Clara Barton, who saw the
Flexner explained us on her book “Century of Struggle” how women contributed to the Civil War by becoming soldiers, spies, and spending time and energy healing the sick and wounded. According to her book “women frustrated by their limitations in society entered into the army as soldiers. Approximately 400 women tied up their hoops and pulled up pants to serve”(145). The women of the Civil War are best remembered for their colorful hoop skirts. Perhaps it is hard to imagine how the women soldiers successfully managed to enlist. The women first picked male names; it was probably really easy to enlist in the army because recruiters, both Northern and Southern, did not ask for proof of identity. These women soldiers bound their breasts, cut their hair, and learned how to smoke cigars, and some even wore false mustaches. With loose uniforms and lack of facial hair the women could pass as young men. Women soldiers deserve remembrance because their actions display them as uncommon and