DOC Turn Backward; O Time: The Civil War Diary of Amanda Shelton by Kathleen S. Hanson in History

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Occupy till I Come - Amanda SheltonBy Wanda BurchIn 2011 The Occupy Movement became an international protest movement against social and economic inequality; momentum building across this country; boosted by admarketing and a branding date.But Amanda Shelton; a 17 year old volunteer nurse in the American Civil War's "diet kitchens;" had never heard about the Occupy Movement. However; she did understand social inequality and prejudice against working women. In her journal entry of September 11; 1866; she asked: "When God said "occupy til I come" did he mean men to monopolize the intellectual part of the world?"Like many; Amanda found a way to become the heart and soul of the most dreadful nursing experience of the then world - a sea of blood; severed limbs; and disease. She did this; also like many others; despite Dorothea Dix's mantra on prohibiting young women and attractive women. She was both young and attractive but barged right on in. Dix couldn't stop these young women because the need was too great. Amanda; in fact; continued working as a bookkeeper in hospitals after the civil war; her particular gift of empathy leading her to a hospital for the "insane;" where she still had access to patients. She understood the nature of gentle touch; of music; even joining enthusiastically when a patient was pounding away on an imaginary piano; playing in the light of a window. Amanda humorously told her; near the end of their song; that her piano needed a little tuning! She understood the difficult and twisting path into the psyche of those who were living inside nightmares or those who were lost in a moment's story.Amanda deeply understood how to "occupy" her space and how to claim her moment: "The adamantine rock of prejudice is wearing away by the continual dropping of words deeds ...Occasionally a woman has come forward with hammer-shakes marked reverberation throughout the world--the stroke rebounded may yet crush her--but an unseen crevice was started which was widened by the sledge hammer strokes of such men as [illegible] while all the time the mass of thinkers were keeping up the continued dropping until through the centre of this rock will soon be a ... highway for the women of the world. The way grows easier year by year."In working on a book of my own; I have been researching dreams in the letters and journals of soldiers; nurses; and private citizens in America's Civil War. Amanda does not speak of night dreams but pursues her dream of equality and the right to be herself in a world not yet accepting of women in intellectual pursuits. I recommend this journal for anyone on a path of understanding the American Civil War and on the path of understanding the history of women's struggle for equality in a male-dominated world.