Women’s role in the Civil War

Last month, the museum hosted Dr. Kelly Selby, assistant professor of history at Walsh University. The audio of her presentation “Ohio Women and the Civil War Homefront” can be accessed here.

She made a compelling argument that women’s contributions to the war were important and had an impact on its outcome. Women all over the country began taking care of family farms and businesses when their men went off to fight. They also continued their roles as mothers and wives by providing clothing and food for the soldiers.

Northern women organized a Soldiers Aid Society to make and collect items for these items for the troops. They used the U.S. Sanitary Commission to coordinate and distribute the goods to the soldiers on the front lines of battle.

items in an aid package

By the third year of the war, Northern women were running very low on supplies they could ship to the soldiers. They started raising money through Sanitary Fairs. These big fairs provided entertainment and food to local communities for a small entrance fee. Instead of sending the money to the U.S. Sanitary Commission in New York City, the Soldier’s Aid Societies used the money to buy supplies from local merchants to continue making clothes and food for the soldiers. The Sanitary Fairs were hugely successful and the money raised helped maintain the economy in many small towns all over the North.

Women in the South had similar efforts. As the war dragged on, they ran out of supplies to send just like the Northern women. The Southern women were unable to raise money because most of the South’s wealth was in cotton. Due to the blockade on the coast, they were unable to sell the cotton. Near the end of the war, their children were starving and they had nothing to send to the troops on the front lines. Instead of sending supplies, wives and mothers wrote letters asking the soldiers to come home to help feed the family.

Selby concluded that women’s major contribution in the Civil War was support and supplies. The difference of the Northern women’s ability to continue these effort throughout the war impacted the outcome of the war.

Thank you to Dr. Selby for a wonderful and informative presentation!

Ohio Women in the Civil War

Dr. Kelly Selby will give a presentation about role of Ohio women during the Civil War on Wednesday, October 19th at 7PM. Admission to the museum and presentation are free.

Office of the Soldiers Aid Society of Northern Ohio, 1865 (WRHS)

Ohio’s political and military importance to the Union victory are widely known, but often less understood is the vital contribution made by the state’s female population. This presentation demonstrates the importance of Ohio’s women by exploring their wartime activities on the home front, focusing largely on the Soldiers Aid Societies and the Sanitary Fairs in Cleveland and Cincinnati.

Dr. Kelly Selby

 

Kelly D. Selby is an assistant professor at Walsh University, where she teaches U.S., Civil War, and Women’s history. She pursued her research interests in the history of nineteenth-century war and society at Kent State University, earning her Ph.D. in 2008.  She recently served on the CW 150 interpretive committee for the Ohio Historical Society.

 

 

Radio interview

Last week I had my first radio interview! It was for the Ohio Reading Radio Service, which is a special radio station that reads newspapers and magazines to blind people. I did 2 half hour segments for their “Insights” show. We talked about my educational background, the museum collection, and plans to make the exhibits more accessible to blind onsite visitors through audio clips and touchable objects. It was a lot of fun!

To hear the interview click here.

A Yacht, A Mustache: How a President Hid His Tumor

In 1893, President Grover Cleveland noticed a lump on the top of his mouth. It grew over the next few months and was diagnosed as cancer. The physician recommended that it be removed as soon as possible. However, President Cleveland did not want to alarm the county by announcing that he had cancer. The U.S. was in an economic depression and the President was afraid that a public announcement would make Wall Street panic and the stock market would crash. He needed to find a way to have the surgery in secret- and insure that his iconic mustache wasn’t damaged in the process. Find out how it happened in this new book:

Author Matthew Algeo is interveiwed about his new book “The President is  a Sick Man” on NPR. Listen to the interview here.

Dr. Thomson’s Color Stick

Between 1880 and 1899, the Railway Statistics of America recorded that 44,620 people had been injured or killed due to railway carelessness. It was discovered that colorblind railroad employees who could not see the different safety signal lights caused many of the accidents. The railroad companies needed a way to quickly and easily test all their employees for color blindness.

device for testing color blindness, c1895

Dr. William Thomson created the device pictured here. It was extremely easy to use, economical, and practical in any testing environment. It was sold by major medical instrument stores for $10 (or about $250 today). An 1895 booklet of Popular Science explains how the devise works: Each piece of colored yarn is attached to the stick with a numbered hook, 1 to 40. Odd-numbered yarns are the test colors (green, red, and pink) while even-numbered ones are contrasting colors. Closing the top section of the stick then covers the hooks and the numbers. The examiner would give the subject a loose pieces of yarn and ask him to select the yarn of a similar color from the stick. Choosing any of the neutral or contrasting colors (even-numbered yarns) is incorrect.  The test works because a colorblind individual would not be able to distinguish the test colors from the neutral/contrasting colors.

Dr. Thomson's "Stick of Colored Worsteds" showing numbered hooks

The examiner recorded the numbers of the colors the subject chose. This simple test allowed railroad supervisors to administer the test after minimal training, and each test required only two to three minutes. Those who passed the test required no additional evaluation. Employees who did not pass were referred to the railway surgeon for retesting and further evaluation. This allowed the doctors to focus on the small number of employees with questionable results, without having to spend time examining the vast majority who had normal color vision. The railway surgeon could tell which colors the employee had chosen by reviewing the numbers on the test record, often making a preliminary diagnosis even before examining the employee.

Initial tests on the Pennsylvania Railroad showed that 4.2 percent of the employees had color blindness!

Reflections from a museum assistant

I thought it was time to include another voice on this blog, so I invited a part-time worker to write about her experiences at the Museum. She is a sophomore History student at Youngstown State University. Her first entry is about the cataloging project we’re doing together.

With an open mind I entered the Rose Melnick Medical Museum to report for my first day of work, not truly knowing what to expect. Upon opening the doors I was introduced to the grotesque and almost barbaric looking tools that had been used in the past. Walking through the exhibits, I asked myself “How did people even survive after medical treatment?” Today we are used to the convenience of plastic, disposable tools. In previous years, there were needle sharpeners to reuse needles, stainless steel syringes, and sutures enclosed in breakable glass tubes filled with saline.

My job at the museum is to help catalog the museum artifacts into the University Library system. After cataloging, they are placed back in an acid free box and put in a storage room for safekeeping. I’ve learned that someone who catalogs items reflects the ideas of a detective where every small detail counts in the proper identification of an item. A detail could change the whole process of cataloging with just one inch, letter, or small shape.

During this endeavor I was able to handle tools from needles to forceps, stethoscopes to eyeglass kits. One of the tools that stands out the most in my memory is a chisel-type tool used to remove part of the mastoid bone. The mastoid is a honeycomb looking membrane that is located behind the ear, near the part of the ear where hearing and balance are located. The membranes tend to become inflamed or infected and can cause hearing loss, dizziness, and facial paralysis. Today this is easily curable with antibiotics, but during the 1920s and 30s it involved a surgery most people cringe to think about.

Another tool that I remember is an early instrument used for tonsil removal. Today it is a painless and common operation, but the procedure in the 1940s and 50s was much different. The tool is pretty much a sharp wire that is connected to scissor-like handles. The doctor would just swiftly chop off the inflamed tonsil. No wonder children were scared of the procedure even though they were promised a lot of ice cream afterwards!

dental instruments: tooth keys and forceps

One of the most terrifying tools I saw would have to be the set of old dentistry tools that has retired to the museum. Many people have phobias about going to the dentist or having their teeth worked on, but nothing could compare to the pain people felt at the turn of the 20^th century- sharp, steel hooks with knives and tools for carving within your mouth that would be used with little or no anesthesia.

Every time I open a box, I experience an adventure of discovering something new, something torturous looking, or simply learn how the tools were used. People that work behind the scenes on projects such as cataloging, help make your museum or library visit a pleasant one and play an important part in preserving the past.

We’re on YouTube!

The Rose Melnick Medical Museum now as a YouTube channel!

You can find a short video describing the museum, our collections, and an interview with the curator here:

General tour and interview

We also have a new video which talks about the general evolution of medical practice in America using the city of Youngstown, OH as an example. For those of you who like our doctors office recreations, this video has two scenes which were shot inside the recreations. We also show the wooden x-ray machine from 1927!  It also contains information about the development of local medical societies, hospitals, and nursing schools.

Medical History of the Mahoning Valley

Look for more videos soon!

Dr. Peter D’Onofrio speaks about Civil War medicine

Dr. Peter D'Onofrio in dress Union colonel uniform

On Wednesday evening, Dr. Peter D’Onofrio spoke to a full-capacity crowd about the many medical advancements made during the Civil War. Most of the improvements had to do with the organization of the military and provisions for wounded soldiers and veterans:

• The Army organized an effective method to evacuate wounded soldiers which included an Ambulance Corp with professional wagon drivers with stretcher carriers and specially designed trains to transport soldiers to major hospitals for long term care and treatment.
• The Army also developed a tiered system of care involving First Aid field stations, local hospitals, and finally large military hospitals with ample space and ventilation. This system allowed doctors to practice a simple form of modern triage and treat serious injuries within 24 hours.

The carnage of the Civil War also led to several discoveries that benefited the general medical community, especially in the area of cleanliness and surgery.

• The first use of women nurses, which provided a home-like atmosphere during recovery
• The wide use of anesthesia during amputations with a high success rate
• The importance of cooking food properly to avoid disease and sickness
• The identification of wounds requiring or benefiting from amputation
• Surgeries done within 24 hours of wounding heal better than those done later
• Developed method to seal sucking chest wounds
• Although the discovery and acceptance of the germ theory is a few years away, doctors observed the benefits of boiling stitches, covering wounds with clean cloths, and proper hospital ventilation.

American doctors who served in the Civil War were able to contribute their discoveries and document specific medical cases in the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, 1861- 1865. It was published in six volumes from 1870 to 1888 and contained many statistics and medical reports from Union and Confederate doctors. The volumes include information on a wide variety of subjects such as diseases, injuries, surgical procedures and instruments, transportation, and individual medical cases. These reports allowed doctors to share their observations and newly developed practices. It was considered a major contribution from American doctors to the medical profession and read widely by doctors in Europe.

Listen to a recording of the full lecture here.

Medical Advancements of the Civil War

To recognize the beginning of the Civil War Sesquicentennial (2011- 2015), the Melnick Medical Museum, the Mahoning Valley Historical Society, and the History Department of Youngstown State University are hosting this FREE event which is open to the public. The presentation will be given by Dr. Peter D’Onofrio, who will be dressed in a Civil War surgeon’s uniform. He will  speak on the rapid advancements in medicine stimulated by the Civil War and the impact of these advancements to later developments in American medicine.

The Medical Museum will open at 5 PM on Wednesday night. Take some time to tour the Museum before the presentation. Light refreshments will be provided.

The Civil War Sesquicentennial is being coordinated by the Civil War Trust and individual states like Ohio. Their websites provide a listing of upcoming events, preservation projects, and educational materials.

Great local hospital turns 100

This year, one of the major hospitals in Youngstown, OH celebrates its centennial anniversary.

The Rose Melnick Medical Museum is pleased to provide artifacts to support an exhibit that documents the history of Saint Elizabeth Health Center.

In 1909, the citizens of Youngstown met to discuss the possibility of opening a hospital operated by nuns. After a very successful fundraiser, they had enough money to purchase a property on Belmont Avenue in 1911. The property consisted of three wood frame houses. The renovation of large, old homes into hospitals was a common practice in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when public hospitals were just beginning in the United States. The first hospitals were small for a number of reasons, including the small size of cities or centralized towns, and the fact that most patients were still treated in their own homes at this time.

In Youngstown, the Sisters of the Holy Humility of Mary agreed to operate the new hospital. The Sisters had come to the Cleveland diocese from France in 1864. It was also a common practice at this time for religious orders to run hospitals, since many of the patients treated there were poor (unable to afford a private visit from a doctor) or invalids who had no one to care for them at home. Their first patient was admitted on December 8, 1911.

Within a month, the new hospital was filled to capacity. In 1912, more land was acquired and a long history of expansion continued for the next 100 years.

Congratulations to Saint Elizabeth Hospital and the Humility of Mary Heath Partners!