Reviews for Confederate Girlhoods: A Women's History of Early Springfield, Missouri

The average rating for Confederate Girlhoods: A Women's History of Early Springfield, Missouri based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-04-22 00:00:00 Paul Carris For the most part, history is written by men and about men. It was refreshing and enlightening for me to read this book published by Moon City Press, part of the English Department at Missouri State University. It brings together in one volume many of the letters, memoirs, family histories, stories, journals, photographs, and newspaper clippings in the Campbell-McCammon Collection at The Museum on the Square, formerly The History Museum for Springfield-Greene County. Springfield founder John Polk Campbell came to southwest Missouri from Tennessee in 1825 to expand his family's mule and horse trading business. The Campbells were slave owners who were staunch supporters of the Confederacy during the Civil War. John Purdue McCammon came to Springfield from an Iowa farm family in 1879 and became a prominent attorney and founded an insurance company. The correspondence and stories of the Campbell-McCammon women reveal their "struggles, disappointments, joys, courage, determination, and sorrow," writes Greene County Associate Commissioner Roseann Bentley in her foreword to the book. At a time when about the only things available to women were teaching, marriage, and writing the women stood resolutely for temperance, preservation of historical places, education, business opportunities, dignity and honor for the dead, entrepreneurship, and improving the lives of women. Among their achievements: They were founding members of the Ladies Saturday Club, which is still in existence and is the oldest federated women's club west of the Mississippi River; led the effort for reburial of Confederate soldiers in National Cemetery; were leaders in establishing Hazelwood Cemetery; and they donated land for what is today Jarrett Middle School. Louisa Campbell sewed medicines into her petticoat and smuggled them to Confederate soldiers after the Battle of Wilson's Creek. The Campbell homestead became a hospital where Campbell women and young girls cared for Confederate and Union wounded and dying. All of this and much more were separate from their daily heroism to just survive in frontier America.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-09-30 00:00:00 Robert Jaffe Wonderful history!