Breaking the “Sphere of Domesticity”

The picture above is a portrayal of women’s “sphere of domesticity” during the 1800’s. Included in the sphere is cleaning, taking care of children, cooking, tending to husband, sewing, and other domestic work. The sphere symbolizes the very monotonous and restrained life women led in the past. It wasn’t until the Civil War that women began to shine as leaders and intelligent beings.

Women such as Alice Chapin and women in Ohio are examples of the typical woman during the Civil War. Alice Chapin’s husband enrolled to fight in the war, despite her pleading for him to stay home with their son. Alice’s role in the war was typical for wives at the time; she sent her husband care packages with food, soap and stamps. She only sent these packages to her husband, though, and chose not help other soldiers in need. The women in Ohio, formally known as the Connecticut Western Reserve, also gave aid to soldiers in the Civil War. Unlike Chapin, these women were committed to helping all soldiers fighting, not individual family members. These women were a huge help to the cause by sending clothing, blankets, and food to the soldiers. Even though these women had an impact during the Civil War, their actions fit strictly in the “sphere of domesticity”- women serving men.

On the opposite side of the spectrum were women like Rose O’Neal Greenhow and Martha Coston, who were considered to live far outside of the sphere. A perfect example of a woman who broke the boundaries is Rose Greenhow. Rose was a widowed spy for the Confederacy, and refused to let the Union army stop her. Even when she was put under house arrest for 5 months and jailed for 4, she never buckled under the pressure. Greenhow was an extremely successful Confederate spymaster and was also one of the first women to be jailed. Greenhow’s persistence and disobedience against the Union law set her drastically apart from the typical women in America. Martha Coston proved to be much less wild as Rose Greenhow, but was extraordinary nevertheless. Martha was forced to continue her late husband’s work on flare signals in order to sustain her 5 children. Her husband had begun the experiment, but left Martha with very few instructions and formulas. It was Martha’s intelligence and perseverance that allowed her to patent red, white and blue flare signals for the army to use during war.Both of the women mentioned above were examples of the evolution of women during the Civil War; the war brought with it the motivation for women to excel in life and strive beyond society’s standards.

Would History Ever Be Made if Self-Preservation Was Everyone’s Priority?

(In the point of view of an 18 year-old recruit from Reading)

No matter the circumstances, war is always dangerous. Whether there are guns, swords or sticks involved in battle, no battle is safe for a soldier. I have heard rumors about the great advancements being made in today’s wars. People warn me not to join the war and save my myself instead. How could I just sit around when I was asked to help the people of the Union in battle? It will be difficult to leave my family and friends behind in Reading. Being so young makes it even more difficult because I have my whole life ahead of me, I’m only 18!  Nevertheless, I must trade my life for the well-being of thousands of other people, especially to end the unfair institution of slavery.

Word of mouth has gone around about the change in technology. If I am recruited to the navy I will get the chance to ride on an iron-clad! How cool is that? Iron is strong and can withstand hard blows, which is helpful for the soldiers’ aboard. The Confederacy may have the Merrimack with 10 canons, but it will be no match against our Monitor with a revolving turret. The two moving canons are sure to lead us to naval success. If I’m not recruited to the navy I’ll most likely be using those scary new guns, rifled muskets. Those inch-long lead bullets are not something to reckon with; those things are sure to kill when hit in the gut and causing amputations if hit in the arm. Besides those deadly weapons, the Union is known for the patented railroad artilleries, military telegraphs, and repeating guns. If you don’t believe the rumors, watch below to see for yourself.

As for tactics, the Confederacy has mixed up their game plan quite a bit. Their ironclad, the Merrimack, has so much confidence to sail right up to the Union fleets and fire their cannonballs. The Merrimack even had the audacity to ram our ships so close that the muzzles were nearly touching! This does not resemble the Confederate’s defensive strategies that were used before. The Union has adapted to this tactic though. In a battle of ironclads, we fired at a very close proximity to the Merrimack, causing five collisions. The Confederacy’s tactic towards surrender is to destroy their ships rather than surrender it. Ha! How pathetic. To understand the navy tactics just watch the clip below.

Weapons in this war are very much ahead of the tactics, causing high number of casualties. I have heard that “almost one of four” Confederate generals die in this war, “compared with 1 of 10 Union generals”. That’s one reason to join the Union side- less deaths! My neighbor, a practicing doctor, has explained to me the medical aid being provided to injured soldiers. I was told that ” Of the 250 Confederate generals who were wounded, 24 underwent amputations.” The cause of amputations are the Minié bullets I previously mentioned. My neighbor explained that “The shattering, splintering, and splitting of a long bone by the impact of a minié or Enfield ball were, in many instances, both remarkable and frightful.” Chloroform is always used in amputations for anesthesia. Instead of an amputation, surgeons can also perform a resection, which requires “cutting open the limb, sawing out the damaged bone, and then closing the incision”. It may seem better than an amputation, but keep in mind there is a large chance of bleeding or infection. Amputations also have a higher rate of survival with three out of four.

(The real source of last paragraph: Terry L Jones, “Under the Knife”, The New York Times, November 17, 2012. Accessed March 4, 2012. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/17/under-the-knife/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&pagewanted=print&_r=1)

Well, I’ve decided to be noble and join the cause. It sounds quite frightening, though. Hopefully I am the small minority that has no injuries. I know my parents will be proud of my courage. It is human nature for me to put myself over others, but what would life be like if everyone put their safety before their country?

Civil War Battles Scavenger Hunt

To anyone outside of Mrs. Gallagher’s history class, a scavenger hunt would be a fun game where little hints are hidden on paper with clues handwritten on each one. Ha, us Gallagherians laugh at that outdated game; We brought scavenger hunts onto a whole new level. Each student in the class (with an exception of a few groups of 2) was assigned a battle that occurred during the Civil War and was expected to research it. The information found about the date, location, victor, reasons for success, and a picture were then put onto a Google Doc in order for other to view it. Linked underneath this paragraph is me and Julie’s Google Doc as an example. The next step of the assignment was to create a QR code with the link of the Google Doc, as an easy way to access the document without having to

Photographer: Gabriana Fodera

type in an extremely complicated URL. Once everyone printed out their QR code, we met in class to coordinate where each battle would be placed in the school and to put directions to the next stop on each Google Doc. The planning took a little bit of time, but we were able to begin the virtual scavenger hunt on Thursday! In order to actually do the scavenger hunt, each student needed a device with QR Reader downloaded. My personal technique was to scan the QR, copy the information on the Google Doc, then paraphrase that information on my Evernote. Seen to the right is a lovely picture of me scanning a QR during the activity with my white iPhone 5c. The scavenger hunt lasted two class periods and then we did a follow-up activity on Padlet, which allowed each person to post a comment on the pattern of victors during the Civil War. The link to Padlet is underneath the link to my Google Doc.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x7ixQoGKKAeyVeF8jkiM2ACkK44dBzjYq9k42mWnZBA/edit

This lesson focused around two essential questions; the first one was “Who was the ultimate victor in each of the theaters of war: East, West, Naval?”. Using Padlet, our class answered this question. In the East theater, the Confederacy was mostly dominant earlier in the war, in Battles like Fort Sumter and the First Battle of Bull Run. The Union won Gettysburg,  Antietam, and the March to the Sea near the end of the war, which ultimately decided the victor of the Civil War. The Union was also victorious in the Naval and West theater, except for the Battle of Chickamauga , as a result of a Union military mistake.

The second essential question stems off of the first: “What are some commonalities you can identify in the reasons for the results of the battles?”. With Northern victories, the abundant railroads and large army population assisted the Union to defeat the Confederacy, as seen in the Battle of Shiloh,  Vicksburg, and Chatanooga. The Union troops outnumbered the Confederacy two to one, which helped them win the battle.The Confederacy, on the other hand, tended to succeed during defensive battles; one example of this  was the First Battle of Bull Run. Because the Confederacy was defending their own land, it was difficult for the Union to to invade.

My Very Informative Infographic

The infographic embedded below was made by me and Jason. At first, we planned on having separate sections for each topic (Transportation, Population, etc.), but we soon realized the infographic would be too long. Instead, we created a pie chart with the statistics we read from the PDFs posted on Edline. The statistics we chose to include in the chart were ones that had the most impact on the Civil War; the pie chart was also a visual representation of the North’s abundance of materials that gave them an advantage over the South during the Civil War. The strategies of both the Union and the Confederacy were placed at the bottom of the infographic because that occurred during the War, while the resources obviously did not occur at one point in history. Our infographic is embedded below.

<script id=”infogram_0_civil-war-north-vs-south” src=”//e.infogr.am/js/embed.js” type=”text/javascript”></script>

Making the infographic helped me to understand the specific advantages the North had over the South. Studying the statistics and reading the excerpt gave me information on the different resources in the North and South and how those resources doubled as advantages for the Union and the Confederacy. By creating the infographic with information on the different strategies and resources of the North and South, I learned all of them in detail and was able to visualize it from the chart.

In case the embed doesn’t work the link is:

Civil War: North vs. South
Infogram

Causes of the Civil War Project

The Causes of the Civil War research project served as the commencement of the Civil War unit. The former unit, slavery in Antebellum America, delved into the unjust society in America pre-war; the title “Causes of the Civil War” was appropriate for the project because it focused on specific actions between Antebellum America and the Civil War . Groups of 2-3 students were assigned a topic that had been a factor of the Civil War, whether it was long or short- term. There were several due dates for small assignments along the course of three months, which each had specific requirements to fulfill. The final project was in the format of a “scrapbook”; students chose the website to use but all projects were required to have an introduction essay, six primary source images with captions and six primary source text excerpts with captions. All information and sources were researched independently during the student’s free time. Each project was also required to explain on their topic related the them of conflict and compromise, specifically pertaining to slavery. 

My project was on the secession of the Southern states.  From 1860-1861 11 southern states left the Union in order to preserve slavery. Northerners in the Union, including newly-elected president Lincoln, were pushing abolitionism, so southern states that depended on slavery for profit created the Confederacy.  The formation of the Confederacy was a last effort to create a compromise between the North and South, but ultimately led to much larger conflicts. The secession was the last event that occurred before the Civil War. The final project can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A8zISVxi37BLsCr7Evbce5CUI_98MWVwCR7R5dYcIDU/edit

(intro timeline, image)

As a follow-up activity to the research project, students toured each others projects and created a timeline of the events leading up to the Civil War. Each event has the date listed, a picture taken from the project that best portrays the topic, and a short description in the student’s own words. The timeline was created on the “Timeline” app. Click on the hyperlink below to view the image.

Timeline