Prior to the Civil War, the domestic sphere of ideal womanhood dominated the Victorian era. Women's contributions were concealed as they were defined by their obligations as the primary caretakers of their children and keeping their homes tidy for their working class husbands when they came home from participating in the outside world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Frances Clalin Clayton was one of the many women who saw this inequity and became one amongst over 400 women reported to have disguised themselves as men to gain the rights to fight a war that they would determine the outcome of their lives, regardless of whether or not they were legally allowed to join. This desire for being in the front lines of war harkens the images of the fierce women who broke gender stereotypes in historical eras before. From Hatshepsut to Joan of Arc to the more modern figure for Civil War women, Florence Nightingale, who was recognized for her talents and hired as a female nurse in the Crimean War of 1853. Perhaps these women fought for the ethical implications, to express solidarity with their husbands, for the financial benefits, or simply to escape from the life to which they were bound and experience the power they were doomed to live without. Regardless of their personal reasons, these women, inclined to fight for a nation that that refused to fight for them, shifted the paradigm of womanhood to one that could allow them to manifest their wishes however they pleased.