Jump to content

The Mailer Review/Volume 5, 2011/Hemingway and Women at the Front: Blowing Bridges in The Fifth Column, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and Other Works: Difference between revisions

← Older editNewer edit →
Correcting footnote coding
Correcting footnote coding
Line 80: Line 80:
Nightingale and her party of thirty-eight women constituted “an historic deputation which established a precedent for women determined to serve as nurses in military hospitals, and became the model for respectable female Sanitarians [members of the US Sanitary Commission, a volunteer organization established during the American Civil War] as they entered a male environment previously forbidden to them.”{{sfn|Garrison|1999|p=13}} In fact, the precedent was class-inflected, concerning middle- and upper-class women, since female camp-followers had long functioned as nurses in earlier wars, though their actions went unremarked.{{sfn|Mayer|1996|p=219-223}}
Nightingale and her party of thirty-eight women constituted “an historic deputation which established a precedent for women determined to serve as nurses in military hospitals, and became the model for respectable female Sanitarians [members of the US Sanitary Commission, a volunteer organization established during the American Civil War] as they entered a male environment previously forbidden to them.”{{sfn|Garrison|1999|p=13}} In fact, the precedent was class-inflected, concerning middle- and upper-class women, since female camp-followers had long functioned as nurses in earlier wars, though their actions went unremarked.{{sfn|Mayer|1996|p=219-223}}


Like the female war nurses of the Crimea, those led by Dorothea Dix in the American Civil War largely remained behind the lines, though more often near the battle front. Katherine Prescott Wormely wrote of her experiences, “I see the worst, short of the actual battle-field, that there is to see.”{{sfn|Wormeley|1998|p=131}} Clara Barton responded yet more radically, providing independent nursing and relief services on the battle front itself. The middle- or upper- class status of these “ladies” rendered their wartime actions surprising on the one hand (why weren’t they satisfied rolling bandages in ladies’ aid societies?) yet also protected them to some degree from sexual gossip. As a {{pg|383|384}} mark of over-compensation, they were apostrophized as saints and angels, Nightingale known as “The Angel of the Crimea” and “The Lady with the Lamp,” and Barton as “The Angel of the Battlefield.” They were also apostrophized more domestically as mothers and sisters, which was especially appropriate for the many Roman Catholic nuns who served as nurses in the American Civil War.{{efn|See Maher for a discussion of the role of Roman Catholic nuns as nurses in the American Civil War.}} Their vows of chastity and obedience rendered them particularly appealing to male authorities, notably doctors; female doctors were forbidden from serving—a situation that also obtained in World War I, though many female doctors found their way around American Expeditionary Force regulations by attaching themselves to volunteer organizations.{{efn|See Hawks for a first-hand account of a female doctor in the American Civil War. For a discussion of the role of female doctors in World War I, see {{harvtxt|Gavin, 157–78}}.}}
Like the female war nurses of the Crimea, those led by Dorothea Dix in the American Civil War largely remained behind the lines, though more often near the battle front. Katherine Prescott Wormely wrote of her experiences, “I see the worst, short of the actual battle-field, that there is to see.”{{sfn|Wormeley|1998|p=131}} Clara Barton responded yet more radically, providing independent nursing and relief services on the battle front itself. The middle- or upper- class status of these “ladies” rendered their wartime actions surprising on the one hand (why weren’t they satisfied rolling bandages in ladies’ aid societies?) yet also protected them to some degree from sexual gossip. As a {{pg|383|384}} mark of over-compensation, they were apostrophized as saints and angels, Nightingale known as “The Angel of the Crimea” and “The Lady with the Lamp,” and Barton as “The Angel of the Battlefield.” They were also apostrophized more domestically as mothers and sisters, which was especially appropriate for the many Roman Catholic nuns who served as nurses in the American Civil War.{{efn|See Maher for a discussion of the role of Roman Catholic nuns as nurses in the American Civil War.}} Their vows of chastity and obedience rendered them particularly appealing to male authorities, notably doctors; female doctors were forbidden from serving—a situation that also obtained in World War I, though many female doctors found their way around American Expeditionary Force regulations by attaching themselves to volunteer organizations.{{efn|See Hawks for a first-hand account of a female doctor in the American Civil War. For a discussion of the role of female doctors in World War I, see {{harvtxt|Gavin|1997|pp=157–78}}.}}


Nightingale, Dix, and Barton are the direct ancestors of later female war nurses, among whom are the VADs (that is, the Voluntary Aid Detachment, a British service auxiliary) like Hemingway’s Lady Brett Ashley in ''The Sun Also Rises'' and Catherine Barkley in ''A Farewell to Arms'', and also like American Red Cross nurse Agnes von Kurowsky. To combat the potentially salacious reputation of female war nurses, they labored under strict rules of appearance and behavior. Dix required her nurses to be middle-aged and “plain to the point of ugliness.”{{sfn|Garrison|1999|p=18}}  American Red Cross nurses serving in World War I were “forbidden to carry on serious romances, even to be alone with a gentleman caller.”{{sfn|Villard and Nagel|1989|p=239}}
Nightingale, Dix, and Barton are the direct ancestors of later female war nurses, among whom are the VADs (that is, the Voluntary Aid Detachment, a British service auxiliary) like Hemingway’s Lady Brett Ashley in ''The Sun Also Rises'' and Catherine Barkley in ''A Farewell to Arms'', and also like American Red Cross nurse Agnes von Kurowsky. To combat the potentially salacious reputation of female war nurses, they labored under strict rules of appearance and behavior. Dix required her nurses to be middle-aged and “plain to the point of ugliness.”{{sfn|Garrison|1999|p=18}}  American Red Cross nurses serving in World War I were “forbidden to carry on serious romances, even to be alone with a gentleman caller.”{{sfn|Villard and Nagel|1989|p=239}}
Retrieved from "https://projectmailer.net/pm/The_Mailer_Review/Volume_5,_2011/Hemingway_and_Women_at_the_Front:_Blowing_Bridges_in_The_Fifth_Column,_For_Whom_the_Bell_Tolls,_and_Other_Works"