Victorian life, as we're reminded by Leonard, a history professor at Colby College in Maine, delineated gender spheres: the home for women and the rest of the world for men. The Civil War challenged this construction as women created new places for themselves. Yankee Sophronia Bucklin was a frontline nurse who was self-confident enough to question the authority of army surgeons, and Annie Wittenmeyer organized supplies for hospitals. Mary Walker was the only woman doctor in the Union Army--and served wearing bloomers. Postwar accounts reintegrated the contributions of these women, writes Leonard, into conventional patterns ``to foster a return of middle-class gender arrangements to their status quo antebellum.'' But nothing could take away Mary Walker's hard-won Congressional Medal of Honor. A thoughtful and original study. Photos not seen by PW. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Dr. Mary E. Walker wore bloomers, scandalized bureaucrats, and fought to be commissioned a surgeon in the Union Army. Sophronia Bucklin left her home and family upstate New York to become a battlefield nurse. Annie Wittenmyer coordinated Iowa's military relief supplies and later organized special diet kitchens for wounded soldiers, saving many lives. All three women pushed beyond prevailing Victorian antebellum mores to make meaningful contributions to the Civil War. Leonard (history, Colby Coll.) examines their lives and struggles against a male-dominated society that insisted a woman's place was in the home, not on the battlefield or in the hospital. She highlights one battle behind the war: the fight for professional recognition-that is, compensation and acknowledgment of real contributions-waged by these and many other women, some of whom sacrificed as much as the soldiers they tended. A powerful and valuable addition to larger public library history collections.-Nancy L. Whitfield, Meriden P.L., Ct. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Although at times unevenly woven, this account of three women's struggles to serve the Union adds new texture to the well- worn Civil War metaphor ``a house divided.'' Drawing on their letters and journals as well as formal historical sources, Leonard (History/Colby College) chronicles the lives of three women who battled gender stereotypes in order to participate in the war effort: Sophronia Bucklin, a volunteer nurse; Annie Wittenmyer, a soldiers' aid activist; and Mary Edwards Walker, a licensed physician. Each of the three struggled daily against their male co-workers and superiors, who operated under a rigid set of assumptions about women's abilities (for self- sacrificing nurture, not compensated service) and proper place (maintaining home and hearth, not participating in war). Bucklin persevered even though she, like other nurses at the front, was denied pay and expected to perform menial jobs. Male stubbornness obstructed Wittenmyer in her efforts to institutionalize services; even her Special Diet kitchens, attached to army hospitals, met with stubborn opposition, probably because they offered paid, public work for women. Despite achieving the respect of army officials in the field, Walker was repeatedly rebuffed in her applications for a formal commission. Leonard describes how all three of her subjects helped create new possibilities for women after the war, but she especially appreciates Walker's radical assault on gender prescriptions--her pursuit of a paid commission, heroism on the bloodiest battle fronts, and insistence on practical, ``un-womanly'' attire. While postbellum accounts of women and the war commended both Bucklin and Wittenmyer, Walker was denigrated as a ``freak'' or a ``crank.'' This discrepancy, in Leonard's radical feminist view, attests to the singular strength of Walker's character and demands historical notice. Despite some narrative discord arising from the uneasy mix of broad cultural generalizations and minute historical details, a valuable contribution to our understanding of the durability and vulnerability of ideas about gender in the 19th century.

Leonard uses the careers of three women to illustrate gender struggles both during and after the Civil War. That of Sophronia Bucklin, a nurse, shows how a woman was able to work within a slightly modified but still acceptable Victorian pattern and provide valuable service. That of Annie Wittenmyer, who worked to provide nonmilitary supplies, orphan asylums, and diet kitchens, has her adopting male roles by exercising administrative and political skills; her positive programs, persistently and vigorously promoted, succeeded because she effected compromises with men as steps toward achieving her goals. That of the only woman to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, physician Mary Edwards Walker, however, exemplifies a woman who could not endure compromise and interpreted every opposition to her as a personal affront; she tried to overturn at once the whole gender relationship of the time and so achieved little of a permanent nature. Leonard tells these career stories well, in detail and with liveliness. ~--William Beatty