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While Harriet Patience Dame and Mary Ann Bickerdyke are recognized for their nursing role during the American Civil War, their efforts to assure pay equity for nurses in the last decades of the 19th century may be even more important in the history of nursing. Both women tended to the economic and social needs of other nurses in the years following the war. Harriet Patience Dame volunteered with the 2nd New Hampshire Regiment in June 1861 for four years and eight months. Soldiers affectionately called her Mother and she called them “her boys.” (“Nursed the Soldiers,” 1896) Mary Ann Bickerdyke entered the Civil War as a volunteer nurse in 1861 from Galesburg, IL, and also cared for the soldiers on the field for four years. She was so adored that soldiers called her “Mother” as well, and she also referred to them as her boys. (“Editor’s Miscellany,” 1901) In many cases, nurses took the place of the young soldiers’ mothers while the soldiers were dying of injuries or illness. Civil War veterans remembered nurses as angels of mercy (Adams, 2002). In addition, Bickerdyke and Dame were caregivers and "mothers" to other nurses in the struggle to provide them recognition for their deeds.In the post-Civil War years, Dame and Bickerdyke turned their attention to pensions for nurses. Much political work needed to be done to persuade the legislature in Washington that nurses were as entitled to pensions as male veterans were. Congressmen expected women to have been nurses gratis for noble reasons and not for money (Meredith, 1892). It was an expectation of a woman to minister to the needs of the sick, disabled and wounded because she was a woman (Gray, 1892). Class and racial prejudice and reluctance to provide Confederate veterans with pensions all slowed the process of pensioning women nurses, as shown by Jane Schultz, premier researcher on the first pension legislation for nurses (Schultz, 2004).In 1881, Dame began to work with Dorothea Dix, former Superintendent of Women Nurses for the Union Army, to obtain jobs, pensions for their service, or disability pensions for Civil War nurses. Dame presided over meetings of the National Association of Ex-Army Nurses because Dix was unable to attend (Scott, 1904). On April 12, 1886, Dame wrote to Dix, “There are so many of the nurses out of employment and we are not able to help them to get work that it makes our meetings rather unpleasant sometimes. There are several of the nurses very poor but too proud to ask assistance from any one. All they want is a chance to take care of themselves.” (Dame, 1886).Nor did Bickerdyke’s work end with the war; she continued to help veterans and nurses long after. She opened a boarding house and hotel in Kansas and provided aid to numerous relief efforts in Kansas, Chicago, New York, and California. As a pension attorney, she claimed to have been instrumental in securing pensions for over 300 army nurses and many more male veterans (Chase, 1896).Patriotic organizations of veterans and others, the General Army of the Republic (GAR) and the Woman’s Relief Corps (WRC), undertook to obtain pension legislation on a much larger scale than Dame and Bickerdyke’s work. Ultimately, in 1892 the work of the WRC’s pension committee resulted in a pension act that provided $12 a month to women who had worked as nurses in the Civil War for at least six months and who were disabled and unable to provide for themselves (Schultz, 2004). Bickerdyke was a member of the WRC. Her work as an angel of mercy is commemorated by a statue in Galesburg, IL. (See Illustration.) Dame is commemorated by her induction into the ANA Hall of Fame in 2002 (“Five Nurses,” 2002).The National Association of Ex-Army Nurses led by Dame, however, was not satisfied to receive an amount less than the pensions of soldiers. They wanted nurses “pensioned on an equal rating with the soldiers themselves, it being personal service as much as the soldiers, …” Furthermore, they wanted a higher rate for nurses who had extra responsibility, including Dame and Bickerdyke specifically (Corts, 1888). In 1892, the WRC and the National Association of Ex-Army Nurses compromised in order to assure that a pension bill for nurses would pass (An Act Granting Pensions to Army Nurses, 1892). Nurses continue to commemorate Bickerdyke and Dame today for their compassionate nursing care and also for the value they placed on adequate compensation for nurses’ work. They did not believe that the title Angel of Mercy justified unequal pay or pension. Although they worked with caring hearts and open arms, they did so with intention. As the nation welcomes home returning veterans in the current era, nurses continue to provide care and service to the soldiers and society at large.References Adams, J.B. (2002). A soldier remembers. In M. G. Holland (Ed.), Our army nurses. Stories from the Civil War (pp 1-3). Roseville, MN: Edinborough Press.An Act Granting Pensions to Army Nurses, Statutes at Large, 52nd Cong, 1st sess Chap 379, (August 5, 1892)Chase J.A.(1896). Mary A. Bickerdyke, “Mother.” The Life Story of one who, as Wife, Mother, Army Nurse, Pension Agent and City Missionary, has touched the Heights and Depths of Human Life, with an introduction by Annie Wittenmeyer. Kansas: Woman’s Relief Corps.Corts, H.A.B. (1888, February 29). [Letter to Committee on Pensions, United States Senate]. 50th Cong. 1st sess. SR Doc 569, Serial 2520Dame, H.P. (1886, April 5). [Letter to Dorothea Dix]. The Houghton Library, Harvard University (Dorothea Dix manuscripts, bMS Am 1838), Cambridge, MA.“Editor’s Miscellany. Mrs. Mary A. Bickerdyke,” (1901). American Journal of Nursing, 1(12), 235. Obtained from JSTOR.“Five Nurses To Be Inducted into ANA’s Hall of Fame,” (2002, May/June) The American Nurse, p.21.Gray, Senator from Delaware speaking in opposition to the nurse pension bill, 52nd Cong., 1st sess., Congressional Record (July 26, 1892): 6797. Meredith, Congressman from Virginia speaking against the general nurse pension bill, 52nd Cong., 1st ses., Congressional Record (June 28, 1892) 5581-3 “Nursed the Soldiers,” (1896, January 12). The Washington Post, ProQuest Historical Newspapers (1877-1990), p.14.Schultz, J.E. (2004). Women at the front: Hospital workers in Civil War America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Scott, K.M., (1904). In Honor of the National Association of Civil War Army Nurses, Atlantic City, New Jersey: Citizens Executive Committee of the GAR.. ................
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