Mary Livermore and My Story of the War: A nurse's narrative journey.

Abstract

Mary Livermore's My Story of the War is a valuable piece of travel writing written from the point of view of a nurse who documented her unexpected personal and professional journey to administer the Sanitary Commission of the United States Union Army and provide nursing care during the American Civil War. Although Livermore's pre-war background had not been solely limited to the domestic sphere, her wartime experience involved a public negotiation between the traditional domestic realm assigned to women and new nursing professional functions that emerged during the war. In a context in which the general access of women to public writing was rather limited and in which nursing was not a formally regulated professional activity, Livermore's triumphal narrative reflects the increasing connection between progressively professional nursing functions that emerged in the context of war and a new women's rights leadership forged during her autobiographical journey.