F23-083, Civil War Women: Indispensable Leaders of the Second American Revolution

The Civil War brought about a wholesale transformation of American society; and among the most titanic changes was the role of women. Abolition of slavery was the most far-reaching change, but others included further opening of the West via the transcontinental railroads and the Homestead Act; expansion of the role of government; increased urbanization and immigration; and even the rise of baseball as the national game. But the thousands of women who asserted themselves during the war, becoming doctors, nurses, spokesmen for abolition, and other professions, even soldiers, transformed society irrevocably. Gene’s two volume book, Civil War Women: Underestimated and Indispensable, discusses 100 of those women and their contributions. Signed copies of the books will be available for purchase at the LLI session or via this web-site:https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00HV4SSWK
NOTE: This program will be upstairs at the Dar al-Noor Islamic Community Center. Shoes may not be worn on that floor. Attendees should be prepared to take off their shoes, as only socks or bare feet are acceptable there. On occasion, booties to go over shoes may be provided, but not always.

Presenter: Gene Schmiel
Gene Schmiel is a retired U.S. Department of State Foreign Service Officer, who was also an assistant professor of history at St. Francis University in Loretto, Pennsylvania. He holds a doctorate in history from The Ohio State University and has written over 20 books about the Civil War. His first, Citizen-General: Jacob Dolson Cox and the Civil War Era, was published in 2014 by Ohio University Press. A companion book, My Dearest Lilla: Civil War Letters Home by General Jacob D. Cox, will be published this fall by the University of Tennessee Press. In February of this year, he spoke at LLI-Manassas on the biography of General Irvin McDowell. Gene is a native Ohioan who lives in Gainesville, Virginia, on the border of the Manassas battlefields.

LLI Coordinator: David Pace