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| Society for Women and the Civil War, Inc. Box #9066 8345 NW 66th St. Miami, FL 33166 (804) 244-1864 www.swcw.org |
FRIDAY, July 23, 2010
Workshop 1: “Behind the Scenes at the North Carolina Museum of History”. Participants walked from Peace College to the museum, where conference planners arranged a
very special "behind-the-scenes" tour to view the museum's extensive collection of clothing and other artifacts related to women and the Civil War.
Workshop 2: “On Your Own Walking Tour of Mordecai Square Historic Park” Participants visited Mordecai Square Historic Park which highlighted the Mordecai House, the
Ellen Mordecai Garden and other buildings that have been moved to the site including the original birthplace of President Andrew Johnson, the Badger-Iredell Law Office,
Allen Kitchen and St. Mark's Chapel.
Workshop 3: “Holding the Fort Alone: Giving Voice to the Woman Left Behind.” – Candy Grover recounted the journey to find evidence (beyond a single remaining
photograph) of the life of her ancestor, Almira Curtis Smart, as she ran her household of nine children, a great-grandmother, a grandfather and several grandchildren. The
workshop included an excercise in "leaving our own voices."
WELCOME RECEPTION:
Participants enjoyed a traditional Picnic of North Carolina Barbeque!
KEYNOTE PRESENTATION
"Immunity from the Consequences of War: Female Academies in Confederate North Carolina"
by David Sikenat, Independent Scholar
Mr. Sikenat spoke of his study of three dozen Civil War female academies in North Carolina that survived and prospered during the war. He proposed that they did so
because they became places of refuge, where parents could send their teenage daughters away from the front lines.
SATURDAY– July 24, 2010
FIELD TRIP TO HISTORIC STAGVILLE AND BENNET PLACE
Participants visited historic Stagville and the Bennet Place. Historic Stagville comprises the remnants of one of the largest plantations of the pre-Civil War South. With both
the "big house" and extant slave quarters, this site offers a view of the lives of women at either end of the social and economic spectra.
Bennett Place is an example of the housing lived in by much of the middle class majority of North Carolina residents. It survives and is a state park today because it also
represents the way that event of war affected the lives of women. It is the location of Joseph E. Johnston's April 1865 surrender.
PRESENTATIONS:
"Swift Fingered Sisters of Benevolence: Female Sanitary Fair Volunteers & the Promotion of Sewing Machines as a Patriotic Purchase"
by Amy Breakwell
The sewing machine was in wide-spread commercial, but not domestic, use at the outbreak of the Civil War. Breakwell proposes that public portrayal of sewing machines at
Sanitary Fairs countered Americans' resistance to the introduction of machinery in the home.
“Women at Work During the Civil War: Wheeling, West Virginia Case Study"
by Barabara Howe
This presentation looks at the ways women earned their living in Wheeling, (West) Virginia, from the desperate work of prostitutes to the work of women religious. Howe
recreates the lives of women who left almost no records and maps their places of employment.
"Wound That Never Healed: The Women of Arkansas and the Hardships They Faced During the Civil War'
by Ellen Lewis
"War is Hell"... especially for Arkansas women left at home to face its consequences. This presentation includes stirring testimonies of strong-hearted women facing the
consequences of an undecided government, emancipation and humiliation from both armies.
SUNDAY – July 25, 2010
“Ways of Providence are Passing Strange: Northern Women Interpret the Civil War”
by Sean Scott
Many women understood the war in theological terms and interpreted it as an event with profound spiritual consequences. Scott uses the words of women living in the "Old
Northwest" states to reveal the importance of religious beliefs in their understanding of the Civil War.
"Love in Battle: Courtship in the Confederate South" by Victoria Ott
This presentation examines the consequences of war on the courtship activities of the young women from the slaveholding South, seeking and finding comfort in marital
ideals rooted in the antebellum values that included family honor and feminine duty.
North Carolina Flags by Rebecca Rose
Women across the state of North Carolina produced and presented flags to their men as they went off to war. This presentation will focus on the thirty North Carolina flags in
Museum of the Confederacy collection and select flags from the North Carolina Museum of History.
Vinnie Ream by Maureen Sappey
Vinnie Ream was only 16 when she finished her famous sculpture of Abraham Lincoln's "face of unfathomable sorrow" just before April 14, 1865. Learn about Vinnie's
career and her sculptures located in and around Washington, DC.
| Raleigh, NC |