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Catholic religious sisters, commonly (and inaccurately) called “nuns”, are a declining part of American life. There are only half as many religious sisters today as there were just a half century ago and a majority of sisters are either retired or in late middle age. This was not the case in mid-19th Century America, where, in the words of the leading historian of nursing sisters, “Catholic nuns were everywhere.” The sisters “ran corporations, dealt with national governments, journeyed on fact-finding missions crossing the country, indeed the world” at a time when most American woman were confined to the “domestic sphere.” 1
Most of these sisters were Irish immigrants.
Although the Irish were among the poorest people in Europe, Irish nurses in Ireland and in the diaspora in Britain, America, and Australia were able to take advantage of the transnational nature of the Catholic world to obtain medical training and organizational ideas. Many Irish nursing sisters trained in France or under Irish women who had trained there. French nuns had established some of the first hospitals in North America and the Irish sisters brought the same organizational zeal when they immigrated to the United States in the 1840s and 1850s.2
Catholic nuns had been a particular target of the Know Nothings and their anti-immigrant predecessors. The sisters filled public roles not ordinarily allowed to American women and they wore distinctive clothes that made them as noticeable in 19th Century America as traditional Muslim dress does today. The fact that they lived without husbands together in convents led to rumors that they were prostitutes or sex slaves. Organizing schools, orphanages, and hospitals, hiring male professionals to work for their institutions, these immigrant sisters “practiced a radical form of self-assertion through submission to religion,” in the words of their leading historian.3
Nuns founded 299 American hospitals between 1829 and 1900. These ranged the famous, like the Mayo Clinic and New York’s late lamented St. Vincent’s, to working class hospitals in Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Boston. In addition to the hospitals they started, nuns would form the nursing departments of important hospitals like the Baltimore Infirmary, the first university-affiliated teaching hospital in this country.4
When the Civil War broke out, the nursing sisters formed a cadre of trained nursing specialists already organized into disciplined structures. Unlike the upper class women who volunteered briefly as nurses , only to return home after a few months, the sisters did not have family obligations and they expected to nurse for the rest of their lives. The systematic training of sisters as nurses and administrators was “what separated the sisters from the rather motley group of enthusiastic amateur secular nurses” who came forward during the war, according to nursing historian Sioban Nelson. Nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale understood this, once saying “What training is there to compare with that of a Catholic nun” to teach a young woman perseverance and organizational skill. Surgeon General Hammond told Lincoln that the secular volunteer nurses organized by Dorothea Dix “cannot compare in efficiency and faithfulness with the Sisters of Charity.”5
600 nursing sisters served during the Civil War. They represented a fifth of all female nurses. Their heroic role was recognized in 1874 when President Ulysses S. Grant insisted that a nursing sister, Mother Josephine of the Dominican sisters, unveil the statue of Lincoln at Springfield, Illinois. In the 20th Century, a monument was erected in Washington to the “Nursing Nuns of the Battlefield.” We will meet more of these sisters in upcoming installments of The Immigrants’ Civil War.6
Nuns of the Battlefield Memorial near Du Pont Circle in Washington..
Video: Effective Medical Treatments
Sources:
1. Say Little, Do Much: Nursing, Nuns, and Hospitals in the 19th Century by Sioban Nelson published University of Pennsylvania Press (2001) p. 4.
2. Say Little, Do Much: Nursing, Nuns, and Hospitals in the 19th Century by Sioban Nelson published University of Pennsylvania Press (2001) p. 4-9.
3.Say Little, Do Much: Nursing, Nuns, and Hospitals in the 19th Century by Sioban Nelson published University of Pennsylvania Press (2001) p. 13.
4.Say Little, Do Much: Nursing, Nuns, and Hospitals in the 19th Century by Sioban Nelson published University of Pennsylvania Press (2001) p. 32.
5.Say Little, Do Much: Nursing, Nuns, and Hospitals in the 19th Century by Sioban Nelson published University of Pennsylvania Press (2001) p. 25, 50-55; Dorothea Dix: New England Reformer by Thomas J. Brown published by Harvard (1998) p. 309.
6.Say Little, Do Much: Nursing, Nuns, and Hospitals in the 19th Century by Sioban Nelson published University of Pennsylvania Press (2001).
The Immigrants’ Civil War is a series that examines the role of immigrants in our bloodiest war. Articles will appear twice monthly between 2011 and 2017. Here are the articles we have published so far:
1. Immigrant America on the Eve of the Civil War – Take a swing around the United States and see where immigrants were coming from and where they were living in 1861.
2. 1848: The Year that Created Immigrant America – Revolutions in Europe, famine and oppression in Ireland, and the end of the Mexican War made 1848 a key year in American immigration history.
3. Carl Schurz: From German Radical to American Abolitionist– A teenaged revolutionary of 1848, Carl Schurz brought his passion for equality with him to America.
4. Immigrant Leader Carl Schurz Tells Lincoln to Stand Firm Against Slavery.
5. …And the War Came to Immigrant America -The impact of the firing on Fort Sumter on America’s immigrants
6. The Rabbi Who Seceded From the South
7. The Fighting 69th-Irish New York Declares War
8. The Germans Save St. Louis for the Union
9. New York’s Irish Rush to Save Washington
10. Immigrant Day Laborers Help Build the First Fort to Protect Washington-The Fighting 69th use their construction skills.
11. Carl Schurz Meets With Lincoln To Arm the Germans
12. Immigrants Rush to Join the Union Army-Why?– The reasons immigrants gave for enlisting early in the war.
13. Why the Germans Fought for the Union?
14. Why Did the Irish Fight When They Were So Despised?
15. The “Sons of Garibaldi” Join the Union Army
16. The Irish Tigers From Louisiana
17. Immigrant Regiments on Opposite Banks of Bull Run -The Fighting 69th and the Louisiana Tigers
18. The St. Louis Germans Set Out To Free Missouri
19. Wilson’s Creek Drowns Immigrant Dream of Free Missouri
20. English-Only in 1861: No Germans Need Apply
21. After Bull Run: Mutineers, Scapegoats, and the Dead
22. St. Louis Germans Revived by Missouri Emancipation Proclamation
23. Jews Fight the Ban on Rabbis as Chaplains
24. Lincoln Dashes German Immigrants Hopes for Emancipation
25. When Hatred of Immigrants Stopped the Washington Monument from Being Built
26. Inside the Mind of a Know Nothing
27. The Evolution of the Know Nothings
28. The Know Nothings Launch a Civil War Against Immigrant America
29. The Know Nothings: From Triumph to Collapse
30. The Lasting Impact of the Know Nothings on Immigrant America.
31. Lincoln, the Know Nothings, and Immigrant America.
32. Irish Green and Black America: Race on the Edge of Civil War.
33. The Democratic Party and the Racial Consciousness of Irish Immigrants Before the Civil War
34. The Confederates Move Against Latino New Mexico
35. Nuevomexicanos Rally As Confederates Move Towards Santa Fe—But For Which Side?
36. The Confederate Army in New Mexico Strikes at Valverde
37. The Swedish Immigrant Who Saved the U.S. Navy
38. The Confederates Capture Santa Fe and Plot Extermination
39. A German Regiment Fights for “Freedom and Justice” at Shiloh-The 32nd Indiana under Col. August Willich.
40. The Know Nothing Colonel and the Irish Soldier Confronting slavery and bigotry.
41. Did Immigrants Hand New Orleans Over to the Union Army?
42. Did New Orleans’ Immigrants See Union Soldiers As Occupiers or Liberators?
43. Union Leader Ben Butler Seeks Support in New Orleans-When General Ben Butler took command in New Orleans in 1862, it was a Union outpost surrounded by Confederates. Butler drew on his experience as a pro-immigrant politician to win over the city’s Irish and Germans.
44. Union General Ben Butler Leverages Immigrant Politics in New Orleans
45. Thomas Meager: The Man Who Created the Irish Brigade
46. Thomas Meagher: The Irish Rebel Joins the Union Army
47. Recruiting the Irish Brigade-Creating the Irish American
48. Cross Keys: A German Regiment’s Annihilation in the Shenandoah Valley
49. The Irish Brigade Moves Towards Richmond-The Irish brigade in the Peninsula Campaign from March 17 to June 2, 1862.
50. Peninsula Emancipation: Irish Soldiers Take Steps on the Road to Freedom-The Irish Brigade and Irish soldiers from Boston free slaves along the march to Richmond.
51. Slaves Immigrate from the Confederacy to the United States During the Peninsula Campaign
52. The Irish 9th Massachusetts Cut Off During the Seven Days Battles
53. Union Defeat and an Irish Medal of Honor at the End of the Seven Days
54. Making Immigrant Soldiers into Citizens-Congress changed the immigration laws to meet the needs of a nation at war.
55. Carl Schurz: To Win the Civil War End Slavery
56. Carl Schurz: From Civilian to General in One Day
57. Did Anti-German Bigotry Help Cause Second Bull Run Defeat?
58. Immigrant Soldiers Chasing Lee Into Maryland
59. Scottish Highlanders Battle at South Mountain
60. Emancipation 150: “All men are created equal, black and white”– A German immigrant reacts to the Emancipation Proclamation
61. The Irish Brigade at Antietam
62. Private Peter Welsh Joins the Irish Brigade
63. Preliminaries to Emancipation: Race, the Irish, and Lincoln
64. The Politics of Emancipation: Lincoln Suffers Defeat
65. Carl Schurz Blames Lincoln for Defeat
66. The Irish Brigade and Virginia’s Civilians Black and White
67. The Irish Brigade and the Firing of General McClellan
68. General Grant Expells the Jews
69. The Irish Brigade Moves Towards Its Destruction At Fredericksburg.
70. Fredericksburg: The Worst Day in the Young Life of Private McCarter of the Irish Brigade
71. Forever Free: Emancipation New Year Day 1863
72. Private William McCarter of the Irish Brigade Hospitalized After Fredericksburg
73. The Immigrant Women That Nursed Private McCarter After Fredericksburg
74. Nursing Nuns of the Civil War
Cultural
Painting of the Return of the 69th from Bull Run Unearthed
Blog Posts
The Real Story Behind The Immigrants’ Civil War Photo
Why I’m Writing The Immigrants’ Civil War
The Five Meanings of “The Immigrants’ Civil War”
The Fallout from No Irish Need Apply Article Spreads Worldwide
No Irish Need Apply Professor Gets into a Fight With Our Blogger Pat Young Over Louisa May Alcott
Books for Learning More About The Immigrants’ Civil War
Free Yale Course with David Blight on the Civil War
Cinco de Mayo Holiday Dates Back to the American Civil War
New Immigrants Try to Come to Terms with America’s Civil War
Important Citizenship Site to be Preserved-Fortress Monroe
Should Lincoln Have Lost His Citizenship?
The First Casualties of the War Were Irish-Was that a Coincidence?
Civil War Anniversaries-History, Marketing, and Human Rights
Memorial Day’s Origins at the End of the Civil War
Germans Re-enact the Civil War-But Why Are They Dressed in Gray?
Leading Historians Discuss 1863 New York City Draft Riots
The Upstate New York Town that Joined the Confederacy
Civil War Blogs I Read Every Week
First Annual The Immigrants’ Civil War Award Goes to Joe Reinhart
Damian Shiels Wins Second Annual The Immigrants’ Civil War Award
Mother Jones: Civil War Era Immigrant and Labor Leader
Immigration Vacation -Civil War Sites
Fort Schuyler-Picnic where the Irish Brigade trained
The Fallout from No Irish Need Apply Article Spreads Worldwide
No Irish Need Apply Professor Gets into a Fight With Our Blogger Pat Young Over Louisa May Alcott
Books for Learning More About The Immigrants’ Civil War
Free Yale Course with David Blight on the Civil War
Cinco de Mayo Holiday Dates Back to the American Civil War
