This week, Barbara Maling, assistant professor of nursing, presented her work on African American nurses and their role during the Civil War from 1861 to 1865. Her work mainly focused on Virginia slaves and the differences between their work and the records found of them in many different counties.
Maling gave her presentation like she would at an actual conference, such as the Association for American Nursing, where she has presented parts of her work in the past. Also attending the presentation was President Patrick Finnegan along with other esteemed faculty members from all fields.
The name of Maling's presentation was "Southern Black Pre-Professional Nursing Care Providers in Virginia during the American Civil War, 1861-1865," and she covered the involvement of African American nursing care before, during and after the war. Black nurses were often drafted into helping care for injured Confederate soldiers before and during the war. If they were able to avoid impressment from the government, others were, in some cases, begged to help with the overwhelming amount of soldiers who needed attention.
Because of their help and everyday involvement in southern culture, blacks were often taken for granted and their contributions during the war effort were rarely mentioned in diaries and records. Due to the lack of records showing the involvement of black nursing care, many things were unclear about their history, such as their responsibilities within the hospital.
Maling explained some of the duties, ranging from the preparation of the food to general cleanliness of the hospital. Some of these nurses were paid for their service if they were free slaves while the enslaved nurses' pay went to their owners. Some of the slaves, depending on their skills, received more pay than soldiers during the war.
Another interesting fact that Maling mentioned was the change of power during the war, and when a hospital was taken over by either the Union soldiers or the Confederate soldiers, in some cases the black nurses would often stay at the hospital regardless. They would arrive at the hospital to start their day without knowing whether the hospital belonged to Union or Confederate soldiers.
After the presentation, discussion followed about diversity among modern day nurses and how it is very different from the Civil War era. Maling spoke on this issue, mentioning a reason why many of the modern day nurses are white females could be because after the Civil War ended, a school was opened up for nursing that only accepted white females. The school did not accept the black males and females who had nursed many of the injured soldiers during the war and already possessed nursing skills. Maling later said this is interesting because many of the nurses during the war who were recorded on the roster were black males.
Once discussion had ended, Finnegan presented Maling with an Inauguration coin that is given to faulty members for academic achievement during the inauguration week. Maling's presentation has been presented nationally and internationally in places such as the Bosh Foundation in Berlin, Germany. The presentation was also a part of her dissertation she used to receive her PhD. from the University of Virginia.
The presentation was also a part of Longwood's Celebration of Scholarship events through the end of the month in honor of Finnegan's inauguration. The next Blackwell Talk will also be a scholarship event and will feature Dr. Amorette Barber, assistant professor of biology, presenting "Immune Cells: New Soldiers in the War Against Cancer" at noon on Monday, Oct. 24 in Blackwell Hall.
