Civil War
How the United States Sanitary Commission Elbowed Women to One Side in the American Civil War
Last week, while writing about the use of hospital transport ships in the American Civil War, I promised to tell you the story of how a group of men hijacked Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell’s Women’s Central Association of Relief to form the United States Sanitary Commission. It is a story that will feel all too familiar…
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Hospital Transport Ships in the American Civil War
I must admit, I did not expect to write another blog post about Civil War medicine any time soon. That’s not where my head is these days. But the recent mobilization of Navy hospital ships to help the embattled medical systems in New York and Los Angeles led an old friend and regular reader to…
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In Praise of Nurses
It’s National Nurses Week here in the United States, and I am scrambling to catch up.* In the years since Heroines of Mercy Street was published, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking, reading, writing and talking about nurses.* As a result, I’ve also spent a lot of time talking to nurses–and their friends, mothers,…
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