Role of Women Nurses in American Civil War

Table of Contents

Introduction1

Research Problem1

Research Questions2

Definition of Terms3

Literature Review4

Background4

Women Participation in the Civil War7

Nursing as a Profession8

Reward and Recognition System8

Criterion of Selecting Nurses9

Special Recruitment of Nurses in Civil War9

Military Ranking of Nurses10

Research Methodology11

Findings and Discussions11

Research Limitations14

Conclusion14

End Notes16

Role of Women Nurses in American Civil War

Introduction

Women nurses are well known and acknowledged for their performance in the American civil war. Their contribution in the war is of utmost importance to historians. They are popular for their involvement in the battlefields` hospitals as military nurses and in other parts of the country as general nurses who assisted their fellows and country men in the civil war. Although there are still some areas left in which these women nurses have significantly worked by saving the lives of several military men and soldiers. It is important to discuss different aspects of women contribution in the war as nurses and care takers of the military men. This paper discusses in detail the role of female nurses and women of American civil war who devoted their life for the sake of the lives and health of their country's military force.

Research Problem

There is a vast literature available that draws attention towards the work of women nurses during and after the American Civil war. However, their role seems to be confined to the typical hospital nurses that used to attend the injured militants or the soldiers in critical conditions. The research problem identified in the research paper through the literature study draws the concern of researchers towards the fact that women did not perform any kind of leadership task in the war. This paper aims to find answers to the questions such as the definition of civil war nursing, the role performed by the civil war nurses and the qualification of those female nurses. The factors that made ordinary women become nurses also need to be find out and the amount or compensation and benefits package that might be received by the female nurses is also examined to find out the return and benefits of the nursing profession during the American civil war.

Research Questions

The research intends to find answers to the following questions:

What is civil war nursing and what was the role of women nurses in the American civil war?

How did the recruitment process of civil war nurses go through?

Did the recruitment take place especially for the war?

How were these nurses found?

Was there any advertising campaigns?

Did the criteria for hiring nurses in the military required any previous nursing or medical experience and a special set of skills?

What was the salary or return they got against their services as nurses?

Were they entitled to some kind of rank in military or were they provided with special benefits?

Did they get special training after they were hired?

What were the requirements regarding the uniforms of military nurses?

Were there any differences or similarities among the Confederate and Union Nurses?

Definition of Terms

Some of the terms that will be consistently used in the research paper are clearly defined ...