Nina Silber, associate professor of History at Boston University, traces the emergence of a new sense of self and citizenship among the women left behind by Union Soldiers. Using the diaries and letters of these women, Silber shows the women of the North discovering their patriotism and acting with greater independence in running their households and in expressing their political views. Women serve as fundraisers, post mistresses, suppliers, nurses, government workers and teachers. With a greater public role, women find "their personal, intimate relationships subjected to intense... scrutiny, not only from neighbors and kin but also from state and federal officials." Those who work as nurses are "required to be plain looking women." The result, Silber argues, was a change in the way that the regulatory function of marriage worked within society in ways that continue to reverberate through homes and jobs.
