Man, it is good to be back!
It's hard to believe it's been over two years since I last posted on 'For A Woman.' But after two years of slogging through graduate school I finally have the time to go back to my own research and give these women the time they deserve.
My hope is to ultimately turn this blog into a database, a repository of information on Civil War nurses. The pensions I pulled will serve as the core research material, but I also want to see what I can get my hands on using online resources and local historical societies. That may mean some significant revisions of some of the pages, or even creating a new site, I'm not sure. I know it means revisiting some older posts--I'd like to think I've learned a thing or two since undergrad, and I've turned up a few new things about some of these women in the past two years.
And just like 'For a Woman' helped with my undergrad thesis, hopefully this blog will be a jumping-off point for my dissertation (yikes!), focusing on the postwar lives of Civil War nurses: what happened to them? Where did they go? How did they make the transition back to 'normal' life? How did their service change them? How were they remembered? How did they remember themselves? We know so much about the postwar lives of male veterans, but so very little about the women. I plan on changing that.
For now, though, I'm happy just going back through the files and posting profiles. There are at least 20,000 women listed on government muster sheets and payrolls from the Civil War, and I've posted on a measly 40-odd women! I've got my work cut out for me.
As always, if you guys see anything in your travels about these women, please let me know! There is so little on them, and most of it tucked away in forgotten corners, so every little bit helps.
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