Question QUESTION: I need help with my technology project. I need some information on women's suffrage. Like write about daily activities on a peaceful day? And on a battle day what are some dangeres do yo uand how do you prepare? And, some ideas on what to send to a soldier/ loved one that they may need. And ideas for 2 journal activites.
ANSWER: Hi Paige,
I need a little more information from you about this project.
I need to know the time frame that this is to take place in.
The Women's Suffrage movement took place from from about 1776 with Abigail Adams until women received the vote in 1920.
It is not until 1841 when Oberlin College awards the first academic degrees to three women, the the movement starts to pick up supporters.
After the Civil War women took up the cause of Women's Rights again.
This time it included Southern women as well as Black women.
Prohibition was linked with Women's Rights and men were fearful that if women were able to vote they would not allow the sale of liquor.
So if you give me a little more information as to the time period we are looking at I will be able to answer this question better.
You might take a look at the DVD called "Iron Angeles" this will help you get familiar with the dangers faced by some of the women.
Catie :-)
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QUESTION: The information that I need takes place in the time of the Civil War. All I really need is some daily activities that they do? What are their chores? And, what are some dangers to you on a dangerous day? Also, what a soldier fighting in this time period might need that they don't have to survive or just to give them a nice gift..
Answer Hi Paige,
Great, now we have a place to start.
During the time of the Civil War, with the men away fighting, women had to do many of the things that the men did. During the nineteenth century women heard and read repeatedly that old cliche: "A woman's place is in the home."
Some women during the Civil War engaged in traditional male roles, they did it out of necessity. If they acted more aggressively, it was in the interests of the survival of their families.
At the outset of the war, the soldiers on both sides were relatively well-fed: the mandated daily ration for a Federal soldier in 1861 included at least 20 ounces of fresh or salt beef, or 12 ounces of salt pork; more than a pound of flour, and a vegetable, usually beans. Coffee, salt, vinegar, and sugar were provided as well. Supplies became limited when armies were moving fast and supply trains could not reach them in the field. When in the field, soldiers saw little beef and few vegetables; they subsisted for the most part on salt pork, dried beans, corn bread, and hardtack-a flour-and-water biscuit often infested with maggots and weevils after storage. Outbreaks of
scurvy were common due to a frequent lack of fresh fruits and vegetables, so it was quite common for them the scrounge through the countryside of fruits and vegetables (which usually came from a household garden).
Perhaps the most striking phase of women's activity was their work on the farms. The importance of this army of workers cannot be overestimated, for without them agricultural production would in many cases have been stopped, although it must not be forgotten that the use of labor-saving machinery and the influx of new settlers were also factors in the maintenance of farm production throughout the war. Labor-saving machinery had been used before 1861, but its use became more common during the war period. At first mowers and reapers were utilized only on the largest farms; later their use was more general, and supplemented by that of the harrow, the grain-drill, the corn-planter, the steam-thresher, the revolving horse-rake, the rotary-spade, the steel plow, the thresher, and the two-horse cultivator.
In many of the poorer communities, however, there was little or no labor-saving machinery and the women who did their own farm-work gathered in their crops in the old-fashioned way. The experience of Mrs. D. is a good illustration. In the part of the country where she lived, many of the women had no horses and were forced to harness oxen. She herself had to haul wood, and inexperienced as she was she broke the wagon-tongue in the process. Some of the women in her neighborhood sheared sheep, took the wool home, carded and spun it and made socks. Mrs. D. used to burn brush and build fences herself, and she also hoed and raked. She had once a trying experience with an unruly yoke of cattle, which used to get into the grain; often she had to get up in the middle of the night in order to drive them out. At one time she went to church, and returned to find fifteen of her neighbor's cattle in her wheat. She raised not only wheat, but also a little buckwheat; she hired a man to cut it, but threshed it herself. She had planted sixty bushels of sugar-cane on her farm and invited the soldiers in the neighborhood to a cutting bee; as a result she and the children lived well that winter on buckwheat and molasses.
Boredom stalked both armies almost as often as did hunger. When not faced with the sheer terror of battle, the days in camp tended to drag endlessly. The sheer tedium of camp life led the men to find recreational outlets. "There is some of the onerest men here that I ever saw," wrote a new recruit, "and the most swearing and card playing and fitin [fighting] and drunkenness that I ever saw at any place."
When not drilling or standing guard, the troops read, wrote letters to their loved ones, and played any game they could devise, including baseball, cards, boxing matches, and cockfights.
Letters from family and friends were probably the most important thing soldiers could receive since there was no other way for them to know what was going on in the world around them.
Here is a Journal entry from a woman in Atlanta during Sherman's March to the Sea. This should give you and idea of what war was like for women in the South.
July 22, 1864. [The day of the Battle of Atlanta]
We have heard the loud booming of cannon all day. Mr. Ward [the
overseer] went over to the burial of Thomas Harwell, whose death
I witnessed yesterday. They had but just gone when the Rev. A.
Turner, wife, and daughter drove up with their wagons, desiring to
rest a while. They went into the ell [a large back room] and lay down,
I following them, wishing to enjoy their company. Suddenly I saw
the servants running to the palings, and I walked to the door, when
I saw such a stampede as I never witnessed before. The road was
full of carriages, wagons, men on horseback, all riding at full speed.
Judge Floyd stopped, saying: “Mrs. Burge, the Yankees are coming.
They have got my family, and here is all I have upon earth. Hide
your mules and carriages and whatever valuables you have.”
Sadai [Mrs. Burge’s nine-year-old daughter] said “Oh, Mama, what shall
we do?”
“Never mind, Sadai,” I said. “They won’t hurt you, and you must
help me hide my things.”
I went to the smoke-house, divided out the meat to the servants,
and bid them hide it. Julia [a slave] took a jar of lard and buried it.
In the meantime Sadai was taking down and picking up our clothes,
which she was giving to the servants to hide in their cabins; silk
dresses, challis, muslins, and merinos, linens, and hosiery, all found
their way into the chests of the women and under their beds; china
and silver were buried underground, and Sadai bid Mary [a slave]
hide a bit of soap under some bricks, that mama might have a little
left. Then she came to me with a part of a loaf of bread, asking if
she had not better put it in her pocket, that we might have something
to eat that night. And, verily, we had cause to fear that we
might be homeless, for on every side we could see smoke arising
from burning buildings and bridges.
Major Ansley, who was wounded in the hip in the battle of
Missionary Ridge, and has not recovered, came with his wife, sister,
two little ones, and servants. He was traveling in a bed in a small
wagon. They had thought to get to Eatonton, but he was so wearied
that they stopped with me for the night. I am glad to have them. I
shall sleep none tonight. The woods are full of refugees.
July 23, 1864.
I have been left in my home all day with no one but Sadai. Have
seen nothing of the raiders, though this morning they burned the
buildings around the depot at the Circle.
I have sat here in the porch nearly all day, and hailed every one
that passed for news. Just as the sun set here Major Ansley and
family came back. They heard of the enemy all about and concluded
they were as safe here as anywhere. Just before bedtime John, our
boy, came from Covington with word that the Yankees had left.
Wheeler’s men were in Covington and going in pursuit. We slept
sweetly and felt safe.
Sunday, July 24, 1864.
No church. Our preacher’s horse stolen by the Yankees. This raid
is headed by Guerrard and is for the purpose of destroying our
railroads. They cruelly shot a George Daniel and a Mr. Jones of
Covington, destroyed a great deal of private property, and took
many citizens prisoners.
Now here is an entry from a women in the North
September 3, 1863
One day Mrs. Livermore drove twenty miles across the country, through the same "golden fields of grain and between great stretches of green waving corn." Some accident to her carriage caused her driver to halt opposite a field where six women and two men were harvesting. She walked over and accosted them:
"And so you are helping to gather the harvest!" I said to a woman of forty-five or fifty who sat on the reaper to drive, as she stopped her horses for a brief breathing spell.
"Yes ma'am," she said, "the men have all gone to the war, so that my man can't hire help at any price, and I told my girls we must turn to and give him a lift with the harvesting."
"You are not German? You are surely one of my own countrywomen-American?"
"Yes, ma'am; we moved here from Cattaraugus County, New York State, and we've done very well since we came. It came very hard on us to let the boys go, but we felt we'd no right to hinder 'em. The country needed 'em more'n we. We've money enough to hire help, if it could be had; and my man don't like to have me and the girls a-working out doors; but there don't seem no help for it now."
I stepped over to where the girls were binding the fallen grain, They were fine, well-built lassies, with the honest eyes and firm mouth of the mother, brown like her and clad in the same sensible costume.
"I tell mother," said Annie, standing very erect with flashing eyes, "that as long as the country can't get along without grain, nor the army light without food, we're serving the country just as much here in the harvest field as our boys are on the battlefield -- and that sort o' takes the edge off from this business of doing men's work, you know."
Hope this gives you something to work with and helps you in your project.
