To celebrate Women’s History Month, the Laurel Hill Cemetery hosted an event commemorating the efforts of twelve Civil War era women, all of whom are buried in the Laurel Hill cemetery. Located in North Philadelphia along the Schuylkill River, Laurel Hill presented “Legendary Ladies of the Civil War Era” on Sunday, March 20, 2016. The presentation was conducted by living historian, Kerry Bryan, who portrayed one of the deceased women, Mrs. Elizabeth Hutter, before a diverse audience in a small, intimate setting. The event was solely focused on women and their contributions to the war effort. It centered on the works of twelve women whose individual successes supported the advancement of women in society, especially the role of working women.
Mrs. Elizabeth Hutter began by telling the story of her own life, followed by the stories of eleven of her “friends”: Louise E. (Louisa) Claghorn, Martha Jane Coston, Mary McHenry Cox, Elizabeth Duane Gillespie, Sarah Josepha Hale, Mary Anna Longstretch, Anna Hallowell, Mary Morris Husband, Margaretta Meade, Martha Thompson Pemberton, and last but not least, Laura Matila Towne. The presentation successfully highlighted the impressive résumés of each of these women. For example, Mrs. Hutter (1821-1895) was a dear friend of Abraham Lincoln and served as a Washington hostess during the Polk administration. She founded the Northern Home for Friendless Children in 1853, was a volunteer Civil War nurse, the co-chair of the Labor Revenue and Income Committee for Philadelphia’s Great Central Fair in June 1864, founded Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Orphans Institute, became the first woman to receive a gubernatorial order (becoming Lady Inspector of schools for soldiers’ orphans in Philadelphia), and founded a home for newsboys, a place to help keep young men off the streets. Mrs. Hutter was not alone in her long list of revolutionary achievements. Anna Hallowell (1831-1905) was the first woman to serve on the Philadelphia School Board. She was a teacher, an early social worker, a nurse for wounded Union soldiers, supporter of the Women’s Medical College, organized free kindergartens in poor neighborhoods, verbally protested the fugitive slave act, and taught local black children how to read and write. Mrs. Hutter’s presentation also discussed the difficulties these women faced while pursuing their endeavors. For example, Martha Jane Coston spent years completing and trying to patent her deceased husband’s invention. She was repeatedly rejected on the account of her womanhood but Mrs. Coston refused to be denied and eventually succeeded in patenting Coston-type flares which are still used today.
The benevolent works of these women demonstrate the importance of women’s work during the nineteenth century. While men were busy dodging bullets on the battlefield, these women worked to improve the world around them – opening schools, organizing community events, writing books, supporting underprivileged children, and raising the standard for a woman’s role in society. Historian Alice Fahs of the University of California, explains that in the 1880s and 1890s, “Commentators and writers increasingly attached the idea of Civil War sacrifice for the nation to men only, gendering the memory of the war in a new way.”[1] Although women’s contributions to the war effort were monumental, women did not receive the recognition they deserved, neither during nor after the war. The media focused on battlefield action rather than on the groundbreaking works of women at home. In historian Judith Giesberg’s “Waging War Their Own Way: Women and the Civil War in Pennsylvania”, she explains, “the army relied on working-class women and they , in turn, depended on money they would earn by providing goods and services to volunteers and others who camped or convalesced in the Keystone State as well as those who passed through.”[2] The war proved that in order to be successful on both the battlefield and on the home-front, men and women needed to support one another’s work. Unfortunately, women received the short end of the stick and their work was often overlooked. Today, those women are finally receiving a hint of the attention they deserve through small programs such as the one produced by Laurel Hill. The goal of the Laurel Hill event was honor these women properly and show respect for their personal accomplishments.
Laurel Hill’s presentation was restricted by geographical and cultural factors when it selected the twelve women it would highlight for the event. Because Philadelphia is in the North, eleven out of the twelve women were Northerners supporting the Union during the war. The only Southern woman, Martha Thompson Pemberton, married Philadelphia-born John Clifford Pemberton, and the two moved back to Philadelphia after living most of their life in Virginia. All twelve women were also white, elite women. In the nineteenth and early twenty centuries when these women were buried, only white elites were allowed, or could afford, to be buried in the Laurel Hill Cemetery. While the event was unable to capture the roles of all women during the Civil War, it did provided a detailed description about the lives of the twelve particular women it discussed.
The event ended with a short walk through the cemetery followed by a light reception for the attendees. The event successfully served its purpose as a Women’s History Month event to honor the work of women during the Civil War. The living historian’s performance was lively and entertaining. The stories of these Civil War women deserve to be heard. Thankfully, the Laurel Hill Cemetery recognizes the value in preserving the history of these women.
Bibliography
Fahs, Alice. “The Feminized Civil War: Gender, Northern Popular Literature, and the Memory
of the War, 1861-1900.” The Journal of American History 85 (1999). Oxford University
Press, Organization of American Historians:1461–94. doi:10.2307/2568268.
Giesberg, Judith. “Waging War Their Own Way: Women and the Civil War in
Pennsylvania.” Pennsylvania Legacies 13 (2013). The Historical Society of
Pennsylvania:16–27. doi:10.5215/pennlega.13.1-2.0016.
[1] Alice Fahs, “The Feminized Civil War: Gender, Northern Popular Literature, and the Memory of the War, 1861-1900,” The Journal of American History 85 (1999): 1487.
[2] Judith Giesberg, “Waging War Their Own Way: Women and the Civil War in Pennsylvania,” Pennsylvania Legacies 13 (2013): 20.