Binding Wounds, Pushing Boundaries: African Americans in Civil War Medicine: Home

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Many histories have been written about medical care during the American Civil War, but the participation and contributions of African Americans as nurses, surgeons and hospital workers have often been overlooked. The National Library of Medicine’s traveling exhibit, Binding Wounds, Pushing Boundaries: African Americans in Civil War Medicine, looks at the men and women who served as surgeons and nurses and how their work as medical providers challenged the prescribed notions of race and gender.

This traveling exhibit will be on display the month of February 2023 in honor of Black History Month. Dr. Robert Slawson, a docent from the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, will be at its opening on February 2^nd from 1100-1400 to answer questions and speak with viewers. Dr. Slawson has authored publications on the exhibit’s topic, and you can read more about his work and his bio here: https://www.civilwarmed.org/africanamericandrs/.

We graciously thank the National Library of Medicine for lending us this exhibit, and the National Museum of Civil War Medicine and Dr. Slawson for sharing their time and expertise with us!

African American Surgeons and Nurses

Butts, H. M. (2005). Alexander Thomas Augusta-Physician, Teacher and Human Rights Activist. Journal of the National Medical Association, 97(1), 106-9.

Butts, H. M. (2021). The Road to Equality for African American Physicians: Civil War Union Army Physicians Paving the Way. Journal of the National Medical Association, 113(5), 546-551.

Lamb, Daniel Smith. Howard University Medical Department: A Historical, Biographical and Statistical Souvenir. Washington, D.C.: R. Beresford, 1900.

Library of Congress. Susie King Taylor: An African American Nurse and Teacher in the Civil War. Online Exhibit. 

Taylor, Susie King. Reminiscences of My Life in Camp: An African American Woman's Civil War Memoir. Available online via the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

Taylor, Susie King. Reminiscences of My Life in Camp: An African American Woman's Civil War Memoir. Audio available at LibriVox. 

Civil War Hospitals

General

Keckley, Elizabeth. Behind the Scenes or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House. New York: G.W. Carleton & Co. Publishers, 1868. Available online via the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.