Research day

Today was spent at both the main and Lawrenceville branches of the Carnegie Public Library, where I found a goldmine of sources (mostly newspaper articles of various dates). I feel very confident about conference now.

I popped over to visit Arsenal Park while I was there and took a few more pictures:

Page: Lawrenceville Historical Society

Lawrenceville Historical Society

This is the homepage for the Lawrenceville (PA) Historical Society. Check out the Ask a Historian and Article sections; they have a wealth of information about the Allegheny Arsenal. And for Stephen Foster fans (his daddy founded Lawrenceville) they host the annual Doo-dah Days.

Book review - Army at Home: Women and the Civil War on the Northern Homefront, by Judith Giesberg

Available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/080783307X/ref=mp_s_a_1?qid=1301192584&sr=8-1

I purchased this book a few weeks ago after stumbling upon an article by Judith Giesberg about women in arsenals (see older blog entry for link to article). It has proven to be a goldmine for me, especially about the Watertown Arsenal in Massachussetts, which i had only ever seen in passing in most sources. Not only does it cover women in arsenals in detail, but Giesberg offers a few more sort of case studies about little-known working women in the North; as she writes, working women in the South are covered elsewhere in detail.

Giesberg begins the book talking about a woman named Lydia Bixby, a woman who supposedly lost five sons to the war. President Lincoln wrote her what is probably the most famous condolence letter ever (it is read in "Saving Private Ryan"). Mrs. Bixby has been thought to be a fraud trying to get a pension, but it is more likely that she lost three sons and had been a working woman in Boston. Like most working women during the war, she receives the briefest of mentions before disappearing from history. Giesberg discusses how working women responded to the national crisis, to the extent of filling in some men's roles in order to keep farms and businesses going. By doing this, such women made society as a whole question what roles women should or would play in the future. During the mid-nineteenth century, separate men's and women's spheres were strictly defined. The Civil War raised questions about that.

The first chapter discusses through their letters how farm women in various Pennsylvania counties struggled to manage their farms while their husbands were away. Some women wrote to Governor Curtin asking to either bring their husbands home or for aid.
Another chapter describes how women - in this case, in Massachussetts - could be thrust into poverty and homelessness when their men were killed. Many officials believed, sometimes rightly, that women asking for aid were just working the system.

The chapter on women munitions workers focuses on women in the Allegheny and Watertown arsenals. After the Allegheny explosion, people tried to forget and move on. It is through the efforts of the survivors that these women were memorialized at all, often many years later. Meanwhile, at Watertown, women there petitioned authorities - over the heads of their superiors - about sexual harassment that occurred and safety violations that needed to be fixed. It was the opinion of most of the men in charge that women lost their need for "protection" from men once they entered a traditonally male workplace. Something that still goes on today...

Another chapter talks about how African American women worked to desegregate streetcars in San Francisco and Philadelphia. Streetcar travel was needed for these women to go to work or nurse the wounded. Desegregation on streetcars did occur during and shortly after the war all over the nation.

Again, I dont wish to give too much away. The main idea of this book is that working women were "bodies out of place" out of necessity during the war. Indeed, especially for lower-class families, women's work was needed for their survival. They also fought to gain some level of respect and recognition in order to best do their work, and to make sure their and their men's sacrifices were not in vain.
This book is a scholarly kind of read for anyone who wishes to know more about a tradionally marginalized group during the war. After all, a lot of accounts about women duing the Civil War are by and about the more well-to-do.

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Pittsburgh during the Civil War: Pictures from the Heinz History Center

I finally got to the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh today with my sister (who had never been there) to take a walk-through as well as hit up their archives for information about the Allegheny Arsenal. I did find some new information (well, new to me), but it is fairly safe to say that I have almost exhausted the information on that area. I interned at the History Center almost three years ago and I thoroughly enjoyed working in that kind of atmosphere. If only getting a job was as easy...

Here, some pictures from the Pittsburgh: A Tradition of Innovation exhibit regarding the Allegheny Arsenal as well as Pittsburgh's involvement in the War in general. Pittsburgh was strategically important to the war effort because of its position at the headwaters of the Ohio River, which enabled supplies to be transferred to the midwest. The city's foundries and arsenal also turned out a lot of guns, ammunition, and other military supplies. So it's picture-heavy, kids.
These two dresses are in the Center's Special Collections, which has all sorts of cool items that everyday people in the Pittsburgh area from many different ethnic groups used. I am in serious lust with these Civil War era dresses, especially the green one. I would place these circa 1865 because the dresses both have a bit of a train going toward the back.








Sword made by Tiffany and Company, presented to General Alexander Hays, a Franklin, PA native who was a civil engineer in Pittsburgh, with a Zouave soldier carved into the handle.

Painting of Jane Grey Swisshelm, another Pittsburgh native who was an abolitionist as well as a journalist and nurse during the war. I believe she was the only female journalist to be present during the trial of the Lincoln assassination conspirators in 1865.

Broadside from the Pittsburgh Sanitary Fair in 1864. Sanitary fairs were held by chapters of the United States Sanitary Commission. This was a nationwide organization that raised money for supplies to care for soldiers, and was something with which women were heavily involved.

Martin R. Delany, a Pittsburgh native, doctor, and abolitionist who would become the highest ranking African American soldier during the war, as a major.


General Alexander Hays, whose sword is pictured above, and commanded the Third Division during the Gettysburg Campaign. He was killed during the Wilderness Campaign in 1864 and is buried in Allegheny Cemetery.

Replica of a 20-inch Rodman gun. It's plastic!


Types of balls used in larger cannons, including a 20-pounder.


Information about Colonel Thomas J. Rodman, who was in command of the Allegheny Arsenal for a time before assuming command of the Watertown Arsenal in Massachusetts. He was also an inventor, who invented the Rodman gun represented above.

Painting of the Pittsburgh Foundry, which turned out a lot of cannon and other items during the war.



Replica of a limber chest for an artillery piece, with a lot of artillery implements that also would have been manufactured at the Allegheny Arsenal. More of these are picture below.



Some of the types of artillery shells made at Allegheny Arsenal, including spherical case shot and solid shot.



A Remington .44 revolver and some small arms ammunition that would also have been made there.

Examples of cartridges that many women would have rolled, filled, and tied off.


Two pictures of women working in arsenals, 1860 and 1861, respectively.
An example of an 1859 McClellan saddle, made at the Arsenal in 1863. Yes, it was invented by General George McClellan.


Picture of a receipt from the Arsenal.


Picture of the Arsenal front, 1864.

All in all, a very busy and productive day. Every Western Pennsylvanian - no, everyone with interest in history - should go to the Heinz History Center.

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Article by Judith Giesberg: Explosion at the Allegheny Arsenal » HistoryNet

This is a great article about women in Civil War arsenals by Judith Giesberg, from Civil War Times last April. I need to get hold of her and start digging for info about the Watertown Arsenal in Massachussetts. I definitely plan to use it in my book.


Explosion at the Allegheny Arsenal » HistoryNet

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The Allegheny Arsenal today

Today, I took a trip into the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh to see the former Allegheny Arsenal grounds. Allan Becer of CMU graciously led me around, giving me some more information. We also took a trip to nearby Allegheny Cemetery, where the 78 victims of the explosion are buried, 54 of them unidentified and under their monument. There is little that remains of the wartime structures today. The US Ordnance Department abandoned the arsenal after the war and in 1900, began selling off portions of its land to the City of Pittsburgh. It served as a Quartermaster storage area during World War I.

This is part of what were the lower arsenal grounds. The land is divided by Butler Street. The lower grounds were where the barracks and quartermaster were, keeping them away from the main laboratory in the event of an explosion. To the right is a bridge over the Allegheny River.

Arsenal Middle School now stands on much of the original arsenal grounds. There is a Civil War naval cannon outfront that has nothing to do with the arsenal; it's pretty much for decoration. There were once warehouses on this spot.

More of the lower arsenal grounds across Butler Street. The brick warehouse in the background is a postwar structure. Near the front is where the great castlelike gatehouse once stood (see previous post with photo of it).

This is the powder magazine, the only building from the arsenal present during the war that still stands. Barrels of powder would be transfered from there to the labs for the day's use. It housed from 800 to 1,000 barrels of black powder. Now it houses restrooms and a maintenance shed for the nearby ballfield and playground. In front was once a pond, now filled with cement. During the explosion, before fire fighters got there, workers formed a sort of bucket brigade, dumping buckets of water from the pond onto the flames.

This big plaque is not original to the magazine...it was on the gatehouse, if I remember correctly. Somehow, some guy found it, kept it for years, and then donated it. The crossed cannons is the symbol of the US Ordnance Department, and April 1814 was when building of the arsenal began. At the bottom of the guns is A.R.W., the initials of Abram R. Wooley, the first commandant of the arsenal. And I believe the number of stars around it was the number of states in the union at the time.

Plaque on the magazine memorializing the arsenal and its explosion.

Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission plaque to the Allegheny Arsenal.

The corner of this ballfield is most likely where the main laboratory where the explosion occured was. The lab was rebuilt after the incident, but not in the exact location as the original one. The walkways in the park seem to have been paved over the original walkways in the arsenal. Bodies of the victims were laid out on boards on the walkway beside the ballfield after the explosion so they might be identified. Apparently, body parts were being found a block or two away.

This monument is at Allegheny Cemetery, about a half mile or so from the explosion. It lists the names of all 78 victims of the explosion, the overwhelming majority being female. 54 of the bodies could not be positively indentified, so they are buried in a mass grave under here. Others are buried individually, while a good number of Irish Catholic victims are buried separately in the St. Mary's portion of the cemetery, just past the fence behind the monument. Songwriter Stephen Foster - who was well-known during the Civil War era - is also buried in the cemetery. His father was one of the founders of Lawrenceville.

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A bit about Civil War weaponry and ammunition, part 1

I thought it would be worthwhile to write something about the kinds of weapons and ammunition made and used during the Civil War because without women in arsenals there to fill cartridges and such to be used against the enemy, the war effort on both sides would likely have ground to a halt. Entire books can be - and have - been written about the subject, so I am writing the Spark Notes version here of some of the more commonly used weapons and ammo.

At arsenals, many implements and supplies were made for the armed forces, including cartridges for small arms, artillery ammunition, percussion caps, artillery fuzes, primers, gun carriages, signal rockets, cap and cartridge boxes, and more. In his report made in the aftermath of the Allegheny Arsenal explosion, Colonel John Symington wrote that about 125,000 rounds of .71 and .54 small arm cartridges, and 175 rounds of artillery ammuition for 12 and 10 pounder Parrott rifles had blown up September 17, 1862. The women working there would have rolled most of the cartridges, and many died that day doing so.

The Confederate Laboratory on Brown's Island made not only cartridges for small arms, breech-loading guns, and pistols, but also fuzes, primers, chemicals, percussion caps, signal lights, ammunition for seacoast defenses, and early versions of grenades - just about every kind of implements that the Confederate army and navy would need. Defective artillery ammunition was repacked there for use into colored boxes with red ones for case shot, black for shell, and olive for shot and canister (more on that later). There, the women did much of the manufacturing work; only men were employed in the heavy ammunition department. It is thought that girls ages 9 to 12 would have made up to 1,200 cartridges per day there.

After looking through what I have on the subject, I think I will do this subject in several parts, by side and possibly by branch. But here, I have put it into context of my project. Stay tuned.

Sources:
Becer, Alan. “An Appalling Disaster: The Allegheny Arsenal and the Explosion of
1862.” Westmoreland History. Fall 1999, 41-59.

"The Confederate States Laboratory Department." Richmond Dispatch, January 5, 1863.

"The Confederate States Laboratory." Richmond Enquirer, January 6, 1863.

An excellent newspaper article about the Allegheny Arsenal explosion

Here is a pretty recent and very detailed article about the Allegheny Arsenal explosion from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by Michael Connors, vice president of the Lawrenceville Historical Society (their website is http://www.lhs15201.org) on September 12, 2010. So these are people that I definitely need to get in touch with...

Article: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10255/1086577-109.stm