Publication Date
2022
Document Type
Dissertation/Thesis
First Advisor
Schmidt, James D.
Degree Name
Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy)
Legacy Department
Department of History
Abstract
Mary Ann Bickerdyke, a poor widowed mother from Galesburg, Illinois, cared for sick and wounded soldiers across the Western theater throughout the course of the American Civil War. As a result of her efforts, authors and historians lauded her accomplishments. Her success as a Civil War nurse and Sanitary Commission agent has been the subject of several biographies and young adult books that idealize the role of women during the war. These portrayals suggest that Mary Bickerdyke provided an example of determined professionalism during the war years.
Those histories, however, do not tell the whole story. Mary Bickerdyke’s professional journey extended decades beyond the Civil War and the culmination of her life suggests the ways that class, region, and individual experience impacted and slowly changed an embedded cultural definition of motherhood. In the medical field, Bickerdyke provided an example of the synthesis from old therapeutics into new institutions and protocols. Her persistent implementation of palliative care methods continued to adapt and revise the antebellum “Good Death” in ways that helped Americans adjust to the rise of the professional medical industry. Her work proved how women’s maternal competency as home health managers could be translated to medical authority. Bickerdyke’s significance has been obscured by efforts to preserve representations of her motherhood which ignore the many meanings produced by her life experiences. “Mother” meant more than what historians have revealed about Mary Bickerdyke.
Recommended Citation
Vangorder, Megan Marie, "What Mother Meant: Maternal Competence, Medical Authority, and Memory in The Case of Mary Bickerdyke (1820-1910)" (2022). Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations. 7751.
https://huskiecommons.lib.niu.edu/allgraduate-thesesdissertations/7751
Extent
345 pages
Language
eng
Publisher
Northern Illinois University
Rights Statement
In Copyright
Rights Statement 2
NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.
Media Type
Text
