[On May 21st,
1881, Clara Barton founded the American National Red Cross. So this week
I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of histories and contexts related to nursing and
medical aid, starting with my colleague and friend Irene’s Guest Post on Barton
herself! Add your responses and thoughts for a healthy crowd-sourced weekend
post, please!]
On the iconic
war hero who might or might not have existed, and why she matters in any case.
I can think of
few more AmericanStudies ways to analyze popular memory and prominence than
through the
eleven rest stops on the New Jersey turnpike—and by that measure, Molly Pitcher
and Clara
Barton are the two most famous women in New Jersey history and culture (if
that last phrase isn’t an oxymoron—I kid, Jerseyites, I kid). Pitcher’s is also
the only one of the eleven rest stop referents that wasn’t an actual name, and
that might not even link to an individual figure—some historians believe that
the name does refer to one woman, Mary Ludwig Hays,
who followed her husband and the Continental Army to the Battle
of Monmouth and found herself not only serving water to the soldiers but
even taking
over her wounded husband’s artillery job; but others have linked the name
to a number of other Revolutionary-era women who performed one or another of
those roles (camp followers, water carriers, and so on), including
Margaret Corbin.
So Molly Pitcher
is as much a folkloric as a historical figure, one not unlike Paul Bunyan, John Henry, or, perhaps
more accurately, Johnny
Appleseed. Because like Appleseed’s inspiration John Chapman (about whom
see that linked, wonderful Guest Post by William Kerrigan), women like Hays and
Corbin most definitely existed; the details of their lives and experiences are
as partial and uncertain as most any 18th century histories, even
those of the
Revolution’s most prominent leaders, but there’s plenty of information out
there, such as at the various stories linked in my first paragraph’s closing
sentences, and the Molly Pitcher legend provides an excellent starting point
for researching and learning about these historical figures. Even absent such
research, any collective memory of “Molly Pitcher” itself adds women to our
narratives of these Revolutionary war battles and histories, producing a more
full and accurate picture of those histories as a result.
I’d take that
argument one step further, however. I’ve written on multiple occasions,
including in this post
on Judith Sargent Murray and this one
on John and Abigail Adams, about the striking cultural, social, and
political voices and roles of Revolutionary-era
American women (including not only Murray and Adams but also Phillis
Wheatley, Annis
Boudinot Stockton, and others). Indeed, it’s fair to say that such women
help us to see the era’s possibilities for gender and society as likewise
revolutionary, and as foreshadowing and influencing the
19th century women’s movement. That some of these women,
including Adams and Stockton, achieved such success in relationship to their
husbands’ lives and work—just as, that is, Hays and Corbin did in relationship
to their husband’s wartime efforts—reflects some of the era’s limitations and
obstacles; limitations and obstacles that all these women, like Molly Pitcher,
pushed well beyond.
Next nursing
post tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other nursing or medical histories you’d highlight?
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