Bøger af Mary Elizabeth Massey

The Civil War spawned tens of thousands of southern refugees. Some fled from bombardment or rumor of invasion. Others were exiled by enemy commanders. Virtually none anticipated the extreme hardships they would encounter. Through diligent research, Mary Elizabeth Massey brings vivid detail to all aspects of southern refugee life.

The Civil War wrought cataclysmic changes in the lives of American Women on both sides of the conflict. This book demonstrates their enterprise, fortitude, and fierceness. It focuses on many famous women, including Dorothea Dix, Clara Barton, Mother Bickerdyke, Pauline Cushman, Belle Boyd, Louisa May Alcott, Julia Ward Howe, and Mary Chestnut.

First published by the University of South Carolina in 1952, Ersatz in the Confederacy remains the definitive study of the South's desperate struggle to overcome critical shortages of food, medicine, clothing, household goods, farming supplies, and tools during the Civil War.Mary Elizabeth Massey's seminal work carefully documents the ingenuity of the Confederates as they coped with shortages of manufactured goods and essential commodities-including grain, coffee, sugar, and butter-that previously had been imported from the northern states or from England. Creative Southerners substituted sawdust for soap, pigs' tails and ears for Christmas tree ornaments, leaves for mattress stuffing, okra seeds for coffee beans, and gourds for cups. Women made clothing from scraps of material, blankets from carpets, shoes from leather saddles and furniture, and battle flags from wedding dresses.Despite the Confederates' penchant for "e;making do"e; and "e;doing without,"e; Massey's research reveals the devastating impact of war's shortages on the South's civilian population. Overly optimistic that they could easily transform a rural economy into a self-sufficient manufacturing power, Southerners suffered from both disappointment and hardship as it became clear that their expectations were unrealistic. Ersatz in the Confederacy's lasting significance lies in Masseys clearly documented conclusion that despite the resourcefulness of the Southern people, the Confederate cause was lost not at Gettysburg nor in any other military engagement but much earlier and more decisively in the homefront battle against scarcity and deprivation.