Difference between revisions of "Week 13-14 Questions/Comments-327 11"
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(→Maria Daly, 1862, Northerner in the South (New Orleans)) |
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What makes Louisa May Alcott's ''Hospital Sketches'' so valuable to historians today is both the personal and detailed account she provides. Nursing during the Civil War is almost completely different from the modern conception of nursing and was more about bringing emotional comfort to the patients versus physical comfort. What is amazing about Alcott's job is the emotional strength she needed to complete her job effectively. Not many people, men or women, could handle a job which confronts death of a daily basis and the fact that she knew the risks she was putting herself in to do this job shows not only what a great person Alcott was, but how strong all nurses were at this time. --Heather T. | What makes Louisa May Alcott's ''Hospital Sketches'' so valuable to historians today is both the personal and detailed account she provides. Nursing during the Civil War is almost completely different from the modern conception of nursing and was more about bringing emotional comfort to the patients versus physical comfort. What is amazing about Alcott's job is the emotional strength she needed to complete her job effectively. Not many people, men or women, could handle a job which confronts death of a daily basis and the fact that she knew the risks she was putting herself in to do this job shows not only what a great person Alcott was, but how strong all nurses were at this time. --Heather T. | ||
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| + | While describing the men she is taking care of, Alcott betrays her understanding of societal gender norms. In her notes from January of 1963, she mentions a man named John Sulie, who is uncommonly kind and gentle, with "a heart as warm and tender as a woman's, a nature fresh and frank as any child's." (259) Those comparisons imply that a typical man was not expected to be warm- or tender-hearted, and also not frank. That is to say, the average man was cold- or steely-hearted and somewhat devious or deceptive--not a particularly ringing endorsement of men; in a later instance, a doctor caring for Alcott when she falls ill is described as "a motherly little man," solely because he checks up on Alcott and fusses over her in a matter than seems, apparently, feminine. Additionally, her concerns about looking motherly (and her apparent discomfort when he feels she's being viewed in a sexualized way by a man she cares for her in December) reinforce her understanding--and Dix's strong conviction--about the importance of nurses as maternal figures. -- Nicole | ||
== Mary Livermore, [Northern women on farm during war], 1890 -- Woloch and Major Problems readings. == | == Mary Livermore, [Northern women on farm during war], 1890 -- Woloch and Major Problems readings. == | ||
