The Home Front
The Home Front during the Civil War was often a bleak one, and in the North something that was entirely lost in the urgency of war.
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In the South it started as a glorious affair with fancy balls and southern belles best epitomized in Gone With The Wind. The reality was quite different. For women in the South, the war might have gotten off to a great start but by 1863 things had rapidly deteriorated across all classes. After General Sherman's purge of the South and his march to Atlanta, women in the South were witness to cruelty from both sides, disease, and food shortages.
Because open war was not happening out on the streets in the North very little time has been spent examining the Northern home front during the war. Yet the reality was just as nuanced. With hundreds of thousands of men leaving their jobs to serve in the Union Army, women found new opportunities in large cities in the North. However, with no formal training and hard hours, these jobs where often dangerous. Further danger was found in these large cities where women were often taken advantage of by soldiers, sailors, and gentry alike. However, these dangers were often most felt by the most poor women who had come to cities in search of jobs after their husbands, fathers, or brothers had gone off to war.
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For middle and upper class women, the war offered a unique opportunity to explore new interests, take on more authority and work for the national defense by joining organizations like the Women's Aid Society. These organizations and the experiences they had often came in handy as the women's rights movement took shape in the 1870s.
Concord vs. New York
As a member of the middle class, Jo would have experienced a great change coming from Concord to New York. In most rural towns, even progressive ones in Massachusetts, the idea that women could work for wages and then keep them would have been borderline scandalous. The most a young woman could hope to achieve would have been working as a governess. Even certain types of dancing, like the closed position waltz, were looked down upon. However, in New York many social etiquettes within the middle class were not enforced. There simply were too many people. The rules for house parties remained mostly the same, but as Little Women accurately points out, there were theaters, restaurants, speakers, museums and parks to distract one from the everyday mundane, plus opportunities and jobs in plenty to climb the social and economic ladder.
New York, 1856.
Orchard House, Alcott's Home in Concord.