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 the 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.
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.