Jane
Cannon was born in Pittsburgh on 6th
December, 1815. Her father died when she was eight year old, and Jane
had to help her mother to support the family by lacemaking and at
the age of fourteen became a schoolteacher.
In
1836 married James Swisshelm. The couple moved to Louisville, Kentucky
and it was not long before she became involved in the campaign against
slavery and became a member of the Underground
Railroad.
In 1848 Swisshelm established her own anti-slavery newspaper, the
Pittsburgh Saturday Visiter.
Swisshelm also used the newspaper to advocate women's
rights. She was also paid $5 a week by Horace
Greeley for contributing a weekly article for the New
York Tribune. On 17th April, 1850, Swisshelm became the
first woman to sit in the Senate press gallery.
Swisshelm moved to Minnesota and established the St.
Cloud Visiter. She ran a column of comments and advice
in response to readers' letters. In 1853, she published a collection
of these columns in book form called Letters
to Country Girls.
Swisshelm's
newspaper office was attacked by an pro-slavery mob and her printing
press was destroyed. Swisshelm purchased another and launched a new
antislavery journal, the St. Cloud
Democrat.
On the outbreak of the American Civil War
Swisshelm sold her newspaper and worked as a nurse for the Union
Army. She served as a nurse in Washington
and Fredericksburg where she
helped those soldiers wounded at the offensive at Wilderness
in the summer of 1864.
After
the war Swisshelm retired to Swissvale, Pennsylvania, where she wrote
her autobiography, Half a Century
(1880). Jane Swisshelm died in Swissvale on 22nd July, 1884.
(1)
Jane Swisshelm wrote about starting her first newspaper in her autobiography,
Half a Century (1880)
My paper was a six column weekly, with a small Roman letter head,
my motto, "Speak unto the children of Israel that they go forward."
It was
quite an insignificant looking sheet, but no sooner did the American
eagle catch sight of it, than he swooned and fell off his perch. Democratic
roosters straightened out their necks and ran screaming with terror.
Whig coons scampered up trees and barked furiously. The world was
falling and every one had "heard it, saw it, and felt it."
It appeared
that on some inauspicious morning each one of three-fourths of the
secular editors from Maine to Georgia had gone to his office suspecting
nothing, when from some comer of his exchange list there sprang upon
him such a
horror as he had little thought to see.
A woman
had started a political paper! A woman! Could he believe his eyes?
A woman! Instantly he sprang to his feet and clutched his pantaloons,
shouted to the assistant editor, when he, too, read and grasped frantically
at his cassimeres, called to the reporters and pressmen and typos
and devils, who all rushed in, heard the news, seized their nether
garments and joined in the general chorus, "My breeches! oh,
my breeches!" Here was a woman resolved to steal their pantaloons,
their trousers, and when these were gone they might cry "Ye have
taken away my gods, and what have I more?" The imminence of the
peril called for prompt action, and with one accord they shouted,
"On to the breach, in defense of our breeches! Repel the invader
or fill the trenches with our noble dead."
(2)
Jane Swisshelm, Letters to Country Girls (1853)
I am puzzled this week. Anniss asks me to "say something about
those rich old farmers who make their wives work out in the fields,
and leave their babies in the fence corners for the snakes to eat."
She goes on to describe how the women, "after working in the
fields until meal time, come home, cook, milk and churn, while the
men lounge around and rest."
This is
a very bad case, but a very common one, of the masculine-superiority
fever which has converted so many millions of men into ruffians. I
understand the disease very well, and can cure it easily when I have
access to the patient, and can get my prescriptions administered.
These
old fellows do not take the Visitor! I am too much out of "woman's
sphere" to be tolerated in their august presence. No one has
access to them but preachers and political stump speakers. They see
no paper but a religious or political one. The former never speaks
about woman, except to lecture her about her duties - her obligation
to obey her husband - her vocation to forget herself and live only
for the welfare of her liege lord and some particular church. The
latter never speaks about woman or her interests a bit more than if
such a creature never existed. The laws and policy they are discussing
set her down midway between men and monkeys. She has no vote to solicit,
no offices to confer, but is a kind of appendage to her master. Of
course the ignorant boor gets a vast opinion of his own importance,
as it is continually held up to view by church and state; and it cannot
be wondered at that he practices what our divines, statesmen, philosophers,
and poets teach.
He applies
a common sense rule to the common principle, and argues "if Sallie
has no right to hold office in church or
state - if she is to submit to me in all things, to keep silence in
churches, and learn from me at home, of course I must be
wiser than she, and better too. The Constitution puts her down with
"niggers" and ingins, or a little below 'em. She is
heaven's "last best gift to man," an' mighty useful one
can make her! She can make hay as well as I can then cook the victuals
while I'm restin', and raise some sons and darters in the meantime
to take care uv me when I get old! Tell ye, there isn't a horse on
the place I wouldn't rather lose nor Sallie!"
So he puts
his wife into "a woman's place," and keeps her there. It
is very well known that thousands nay, millions of women in this country
are condemned to the most menial drudgery, such as men would scorn
to engage in, and that for one-fourth wages; that thousands of women
toil at avocations which public opinion pretends to assign to men.
They plough, harrow, reap, dig, make hay rake, bind grain, thrash,
chop wood, milk, churn, do any thing that is hard work, physical labor,
and who says any thing against it? But let one presume to use her
mental powers - let her aspire to turn editor, public speaker, doctor
lawyer - take up any profession or avocation which is deemed honorable
and requires talent, and O! bring the Cologne, get a cambric kerchief
and a feather fan, unloose his corsets and take off his cravat! What
a fainting fit Mr. Propriety has taken! Just to think that "one
of the deah creatures," the heavenly angels, should forsake the
spheres - woman's sphere - to mix with the wicked strife of this wicked
world!
The efficient
remedy for this class of evils is education; an equal education! If
you wish to maintain your proper position in society, to command the
respect of your friends now, and husbands and children in future,
you should read, read - think, study, try to be wise, to know your
own places and keep them, your own duties and do them. You should
try to understand every thing you see and hear; to act and judge for
yourselves; to remember you each have a soul of your own to account
for; - a mind of your own to improve When you once get these ideas
fixed, and learn to act upon them, no man or set of men, no laws,
customs, or combination of them can seriously oppress you. Ignorance,
folly and levity, are more or less essential to the character of a
slave. If women knew their rights, and proper places, we would never
I hear of men "making their wives" do this, that, or the
other.
(3)
In 1863 Jane
Swisshelm visited Campbell
Hospital in Washington. She wrote
about the experience in her autobiography, Half a Century (1880)
I had sat by him but a few moments when I noticed a green shade on
his face. It darkened, and his breathing grew labored - then ceased.
I think it was not more than twenty minutes from the time I observed
the green tinge until he was gone. I called the nurse, who brought
the large man I had seen at the door of the bad ward, and now I knew
he was a surgeon, knew also, by the sudden shadow on his face when
he saw the corpse, that he was alarmed; and when he had given minute
directions for the removal of the bed and its contents, the washing
of the floor and sprinkling with chloride of lime, I went close to
his side, and said in a low voice:
"Doctor,
is not this hospital gangrene?"
He looked
down at me, seemed to take my measure and answered:
"I
am very sorry to say, madam, that it is."
"Then
you want lemons!"
"We
would be glad to have them!"
"Glad
to have them?" I repeated, in profound astonishment, why, you
must have them!"
He seemed
surprised at my earnestness, and set about explaining:
"We
sent to the Sanitary Commission last week, and got half a box.
"Sanitary
Commission, and half a box of lemons? How many wounded have you?"
"Seven
hundred and fifty."
"Seven
hundred and fifty wounded men! Hospital gangrene, and half a box of
lemons!"
"Well,
that was all we could get; Government provides none; but our Chaplain
is from Boston - his wife has written
to friends there and expects a box next week"
"To
Boston for a box of lemons!"
I went
to the head nurse who gave me writing materials, and I wrote a short
note to the New York Tribune:
"Hospital
gangrene has broken out in Washington, and we want lemons! lemons!
lemons! lemons! No man or woman in health, has a right to a glass
of lemonade until these men have all they need; send us lemons!"
I signed
my name and mailed it immediately, and it appeared next morning. That
day Schuyler Colfax sent a box to my lodgings, and five dollars in
a note, bidding me send to him if more were wanting; but that day
lemons began to pour into Washington, and soon, I think, into every
hospital in the land. Governor Andrews sent two hundred boxes to the
Surgeon General. I received so many, that at one time there were twenty
ladies, several of them with ambulances, distributing those which
came to my address, and if there was any more hospital gangrene that
season I neither saw nor heard of it.
The officers
in Campbell Hospital knew of the letter, and were glad of the supplies
it brought, but some, time passed before they identified the writer
as the little sister in the bad ward, who had won the reputation of
being the "best wound-dresser in Washington."
(4)
Jane
Swisshelm,
Half a Century (1880)
In making molds and rests for mangled limbs, I had large demands for
little cushions, and without economy could not get enough. When one
just fitted a place I wanted to keep it, and to do this, must have
it aired, perhaps washed. To avoid lint dressings, I hunted pieces
of soft, table linen, gave to patients pieces to suit, and as the
supply was short they would get nurses and surgeons to leave their
pieces of linen, after dressing their wounds until I should take charge,
and have them cleansed for next time. To do all this, I must use the
grass-plats and railings for airing and drying cushions and rags.
These plats and railings were for ornament, and there was soon a protest
against putting them to "such vile uses." I had gone into
the hospital with the stupid notion that its primary object was the
care and comfort of the sick and wounded. It was long after that I
learned that a vast majority of all benevolent institutions are gotten
up to gratify the aesthetic tastes of the public; exhibit the wealth
and generosity of the founders, and furnish places for officers. The
beneficiaries of the institutions are simply an apology for their
existence, and having furnished that apology, the less said about
them the better.
One day
we had a particularly searching inspection, and next day nurse told
me of some four new cases which had been brought in a week before,
one of whom the inspectors said was past hope. I found his feet and
legs with a crust on them like the shell of a snail; had a piece of
rubber cloth laid under them, and with tepid water, a good crash towel,
and plenty of rubbing, got down to the skin, which I rubbed well with
lard. Then with fresh towels and water at hand, I drew away the sheet
in which the patient had rolled his head, and while I washed his head
and arms and breast, I talked, and he tried to answer.
When I
had done washing and given directions to a nurse to cleanse the balance
of his person, I asked if there was anything more I could do for him,
when he stammered:
"Not
unless you could get me a cup of tea - a cup of good green tea, without
any milk or sugar in it."
(5)
Jane
Swisshelm,
Half a Century (1880)
I was called at midnight to a death-bed. It was a case of flesh-wound
in the thigh, and the whole limb was swollen almost to bursting, so
cold as to startle by the touch, and almost as transparent as glass.
I knew this was piemia and that for it medical science had no cure;
but I wanted to warm that cold limb, to call circulation back to that
inert mass. The first thought was warm, wet compresses, hot bricks,
hot flannel; but the kitchen was locked, and it was little I could
do without fire, except to receive and write down his dying messages
to parents, and the girl who was waiting to be his wife.
When the
surgeon's morning hour came he still lived; and at my suggestion the
warm compresses were applied. He said, "they feel so good,"
and was quite comforted by them, but died about ten o'clock. I was
greatly grieved to think he had suffered from cold the last night
of life, but how avoid any number of similar occurrences? There was
no artificial
heat in any of the wards. A basin of warm water was only to be obtained
by special favor of the cooks.
I decided
to lay my trouble before the cooks, who gathered to hear me tell the
story of that death and of my sorrow that I could not drive away the
cold on that last, sad night.
They all
wiped their eyes on their aprons; head cook went to a cupboard, brought
a key and handed it to me, saying:
"There,
mother, is a key of this kitchen; come in here whenever you please.
We will always find room on the ranges for your bricks, and I'll have
something nice in the cupboard every night for you and the nurses."
This proved
to be the key to the situation, and after I received that bit of metal
from cook, there was not one death from piemia in any ward where I
was free to work, although I have had as many, I think, as sixty men
struck with the premonitory chill, in one night. I concluded that
"piemia" was French for neglect, and that the antidote was
warmth, nourishing food, stimulants, friction, fresh air and cheerfulness,
and did not hesitate to say that if death wanted to get a man out
of my hands, he must send some other agent than piemia. I do not believe
in the medical theory concerning it; do not believe pus ever gets
into the veins, or that there is any poison about it, except that
of ignorance and indifference on the part of doctors and nurses.
(6)
Jane Swisshelm worked at the Old Theater Hospital in Fredericksburg
during the later stages of the American
Civil War. She wrote about her experiences
in her autobiography, Half a Century (1880)
This building was on Princess Ann street. The basement floor was level
with the sidewalk, but the ground sloped upward at the back; so that
the yard was higher than the floor.
The mud
was running in from the yard. Opposite the door, in a small room,
was a pile of knapsacks and blankets; and on them lay two men smoking.
To get into the large room, I must step out of the hall mud over one
man, and be careful not to step on another. I think it was six rows
of men that lay close on the floor, with just room to pass between
the feet of each row; they so close in the rows that in most places
I must slide one foot before the other to get to their heads.
The floor
was very muddy and strewn with debris, principally of crackers. There
was one hundred and eighty-two men in the building, all desperately
wounded. They had been there a week. There were two leather water-buckets,
two tin basins, and about every third man had saved his tin-cup or
canteen; but no other vessel of any sort, size or description on the
premises - no sink or cesspool or drain. The nurses were not to be
found; the men were growing reckless and despairing, but seemed to
catch hope as I began to thread my way among them and talk.
I found
some of the nurses - cowards who had run away from battle, and now
ran from duty - galvanized them into
activity, invented substitutes for things that were wanting - making
good use of an old knapsack and pocket-knife - and had tears of gratitude
for pay.
One man
lay near the front door, in a scant flannel shirt and cotton drawers,
his left thigh cut off in the middle and the stump supported on the
only pillow in the house. It was six by ten inches, stuffed with straw.
His head was supported by two bits of board and a pair of very muddy
boots. He called me, clutched my dress, and plead:
"Mother,
can't you get me a blanket, I'm so cold; I could live if I could get
any care!"
I went
to the room where the men lay smoking on the blankets; but one of
them wearing a surgeon's shoulder straps, and speaking in a German
accent, claimed them as his private property, and positively refused
to yield one.
The other
man was his orderly, and words were useless - they kept their blankets.
After
I returned to the large room, I took notice about clothing, and found
that most of the men had on their - ordinary uniform; some had two
blankets, more had one; but full one-third were without any. There
was no shadow or pretense of a bed or pillow, not even a handful of
straw or hay!
I spoke
the first night to Dr. Porter about blankets and straw, or hay for
beds, but was assured that none were to be had. Supplies could not
reach them since being cut off from their base, and the Provost Marshal,
Gen. Patrick, would not permit anything to be taken out of the houses,
though many of them were unoccupied, and well supplied with bedding
and other necessaries. I thought we ought to get two blankets for
those two naked men, if the Government should pay
their weight in gold for them; and suggested that the surgeons take
what was necessary for the comfort of the men, and give vouchers to
the owners. I knew such claims would be honored; would see that they
should be; but he said the matter had been settled by the Provost,
and nothing more could be done.
On Monday
morning I sent for Dr. Porter, and stated the trouble about nurses
shirking. He had them all summoned in the front end of the large room,
and in presence of the patience, said to them:
"You
see this lady? Well, you are, to report to her for duty; and if she
has any fault to find with you she will report you to the Provost-Marshal!"
I have
never seen a set of men look more thoroughly subdued. There were eleven
of them, and they all gave me the
military salute. The doctor went off, and I set them to work.
When there
was so much to be done, I would do the most needful thing first, and
this was ridding the wounds of worms and gangrene, supporting the
strength of the men by proper food, and keeping the air as pure as
possible. I got our beef into the way of being boiled, and would have
some good substantial broth made around it. I went on a foraging expedition
- found a coal-scuttle which would do for a slop-pail, and confiscated
it, got two bits of board, by which it could be converted into a stool,
and so bring the great rest of a change of position to such men as
could sit up; had a little drain made with a bit of board for a shovel,
and so kept the mud from running in at the side door; melted the tops
off
some tin cans, and made them into drinking cups; had two of my men
confiscate a large tub from a brewery, set it in the
vestibule to wash rags for outside covers to wounds, to keep off chill,
and had others bring bricks and rubbish mortar from a ruin across
the street, to make substitutes for pillows.
I dressed
wounds! dressed wounds, and made thorough work of it. In the church
was a dispensary, where I could get
any washes or medicines I wished, and I do not think I left a worm.
Some of them were over half an inch long, with black
heads and many feet, but most were maggots. They were often deeply
seated, but my syringe would drive them out, and twice a day I followed
them up. The black and green places grew smaller and better colored
with every dressing. The men grew stronger with plenty of beef and
broth and canned milk. I put citric acid and sugar in their apple
sauce
as a substitute for lemons. I forget how many thigh stumps I had,
but I think as many as twelve.
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