Abolitionists, Civil War Women, Feminists

Clarina Nichols

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Women’s Rights Activist and Journalist Clarina Nichols (1810–1885) was a journalist and newspaper editor who was involved in all three of the major reform movements of the mid-19th century: temperance, abolition and women’s rights. Because of her own experiences, Nichols was one of the first to grasp the importance of economic rights for women, of the need for wives to keep their property and wages away from their husbands’ control. Clarina Irene Howard was born January 25, 1810, in West Townshend, Vermont, into a prosperous New England family. She was the oldest of eight children, and received an above average education for her day. Her father was the town’s ‘overseer of the poor.’ Clarina listened to his interviews with poor…

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African Americans, Civil War Women, Educators

Charlotte Forten

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Women in Education: Teacher of Emancipated Slaves Charlotte Forten was the first northern African American schoolteacher to go south to teach former slaves. As a black woman, she hoped to find kinship with the freedmen, but her own education set her apart from the former slaves. For two years she stayed on St. Helena Island, South Carolina, but ill health forced her to return north. In 1864, she published “Life on the Sea Islands” in The Atlantic Monthly, which brought the work of the Port Royal Experiment to the attention of northern readers. Childhood Charlotte Forten was born in Philadelphia in 1837 into an influential and affluent family, all of whom were active in promoting equal rights for African Americans….

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Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women

Major Belle Reynolds

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Civil War Nurse from Illinois Belle Reynolds followed her husband to war, and ended up serving on the hospital ships at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee during the Battle of Shiloh, where she was under fire several times. Reynolds recorded her experiences during the war in a diary. Belle (Arabella) Macomber was born on October 20, 1840 in Shelbourne Falls, Massachusetts. Her father was a well-known lawyer. As a child she heard stories of fugitive slaves from her family and friends. In April 1860, Belle married William Reynolds, a druggist in Peoria, Illinois. On their first anniversary, they were in church when a messenger brought news of the attack on Fort Sumter. As soon as the news broke, William immediately enlisted in…

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Authors, Civil War Women

Augusta Evans

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Southern Novelist in the Civil War Era Author Augusta Evans (1835-1909) wrote nine novels about Southern women that were among the most popular fiction in nineteenth-century America. Her novels Beulah and St. Elmo are the best-known. Given her support for the Confederate States of America and her literary activities during the Civil War, she decisively added to the literary and cultural development of the Confederacy. Early Years Augusta Jane Evans was born May 8, 1835 in Columbus, Georgia, the oldest of eight children of well-to-do parents Matthew Ryan Evans and Sarah Skrine Howard Evans. As a young girl in 19th century America Augusta received little in the way of a formal education. She was tutored her at home by her…

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Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women, Gettysburg

Carrie Shead

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For many years during the mid-nineteenth century Carrie Shead ran a school for young ladies in the family home on the Chambersburg Pike, just west of Gettysburg in southern central Pennsylvania. On the morning of July 1, 1863, Carrie sent the students home at the first sound of gunfire. That afternoon, the Battle of Gettysburg engulfed her home, as Union forces began to fall back from Seminary Ridge. Colonel Charles Wheelock of the 97th New York Infantry ran into the Shead house, closely followed by several Confederate soldiers intent on taking him prisoner. He fled down to the cellar, but the Rebels followed him. Carrie went, too, pleading for a stop to further bloodshed. When the Confederates called for his…

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Civil War Women, Diaries and Letters

Cornelia Phillips Spencer

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Cornelia Phillips Spencer, a writer during the Civil War era, was born March 20 1825 in Harlem, New York where her father conducted a boys’ school. She was the youngest of three children. Her family moved to Chapel Hill in 1826 when her father, James Phillips, took a post as Professor of Mathematics at the University of North Carolina. Cornelia grew up in Chapel Hill and was educated in Latin, Greek, French, literature, music, drawing, and needlework. In 1851, at age twenty-six, Cornelia met twenty-two-year-old James Munroe Spencer, a law student. They married in 1855 and moved to Alabama, where their only child, Julia “June” James Spencer, was born in 1859. In June 1861, James Spencer died after a long…

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Civil War Women, Philanthropists

Annie Wittenmyer

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Philanthropist and Reformer During the Civil War Annie Wittenmyer’s husband died shortly before the Civil War began, leaving her considerable wealth, and enabling her to become one of America’s foremost women reformers. After becoming secretary of her local Soldiers’ Aid Society, she launched a statewide system of collecting and distributing hospital supplies. After the war, she lobbied Congress for a bill that would grant pensions for former Civil War nurses. Born on August 26 1827, in Sandy Springs, Ohio, Annie Turner later became a Civil War nurse and relief worker. She married William Wittenmyer in 1847. In 1850, they moved, with his eleven year-old daughter Sally Anne to Keokuk, Iowa. When Annie arrived at Keokuk, there were no public schools…

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Civil War Women, Famous Firsts

Anna Ella Carroll

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First (Unofficial) Woman Cabinet Member President Abraham Lincoln asked Anna Ella Carroll to become his special advisor and an unofficial member of his Cabinet, the first woman to ever hold such a position. Unfortunately, the public never knew about Carroll’s important contributions because a woman would not have been trusted to fill such roles in the U.S. government. Anna Ella Carroll was born on August 29, 1815, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore in a twenty-two-room mansion called Kingston Hall on a 2000-acre tobacco plantation in Somerset County. She was the first of eight children born to Juliana Stevenson Carroll and Thomas King Carroll. Anna’s paternal grandfather, Charles Carroll, signed the Declaration of Independence. Anna was educated and trained by her father…

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Civil War Women, Famous Wives

Jane McDowell Foster

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Wife of Civil War Era Composer Stephen Foster Jane McDowell Foster inspired the song Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair, but her marriage to composer Stephen Foster proved to be less than romantic. Disillusioned and conflicted by the outbreak of the Civil War, Foster spent his last years in New York City, living on the Bowery and writing songs for cash. Jane McDowell was born in 1829, the daughter of Dr. Andrew N. McDowell, a leading Pittsburgh physician. She was an attractive young woman with auburn hair. Stephen Collins Foster was born to William Barclay Foster and Eliza Clayland Foster in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, on July 4th, 1826 – the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. After…

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African Americans, Authors, Civil War Women

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

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Author, Feminist and Social Reformer Frances Ellen Watkins was born to free parents in Baltimore, Maryland in 1825. She was not yet three years old when her mother died, and she was raised by her uncle, Reverend William Watkins, a teacher and radical advocate for civil rights who founded the William Watkins Academy for free African American children for Negro Youth ( where Frances was educated). The education she received there, and her uncle’s civil rights activism greatly influenced her writing. Frances attended her uncle’s school until she was thirteen years old, when she was sent out to earn a living. She found work as a babysitter and seamstress for the Armstrong family. Mr. Armstrong owned a bookstore, and he…

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