The mid-19th century was a white man’s world.” says Carpenter in the documentary's narration. “Especially in the antebellum South.  North of the Mason-Dixon line, the industrial revolution drew increasing numbers of women out of the home and into the factories. But in the agrarian South, there was no such exodus. The early rumblings of the women's suffrage movement could be felt in Northern cities as early as the 1840s. However, Southerners took solace in the notion that they had somehow been able to quarantine their homes, churches and schools from the forces of modernization that was seen as a threat to their traditional way of life.

“A woman’s place was mainly confined to a limited private sphere, the home and church. Preached from the pulpit and espoused in books and magazines, women were told if they were unhappy or discontented in the ‘sphere’ to which God had appointed them, it must be their own fault, and by renewed effort they could do better. As Fort Sumter fell before Southern cannon in April of 1861, so too would many firmly held beliefs about those confines.”

Providing context in the documentary are several well-known historians and professors, among them Stephanie McCurry, professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the watershed study on women and the Civil War, “Confederate Reckoning.” Those joining McCurry include Thavolia Glymph, professor of history at Duke University, Stephen Ash, professor of history at the University of Tennessee, and Beverly Bond, professor of history at the University of Memphis.

Interspersed throughout the documentary are various reenactments at several Civil War-era Middle Tennessee landmarks, and dramatic readings from the letters and journal s of women, both free and enslaved. In one dated October 1862, Elizabeth Avery Merriwether of Murfreesboro wrote: “I seemed all of a sudden to realize the desolateness of my position alone in the world with two children driven from pillar to post.  My husband off in the army, I knew not where.  Surely it was a pitiable situation.  I became filled with self-pity and cried as if my heart would break.”

In another, Harriet Jacobs, enslaved in North Carolina, wrote “You never knew what it is like to be a slave; to be entirely subject to the will of another. You never exhausted your ingenuity eluding the power of a hated tyrant; you never shuddered at the sound of his footsteps, and trembled within hearing of his voice."

“The writings of women at the time were fascinating, and really illuminate the fact that they were ill-prepared to provide for themselves and their children,” says Requierme. “They were isolated, un-educated and subordinate to husband or father.  Necessity forced them into the public sphere to demand relief from the government and the government was forced to act.  Women who were never even regarded as constituents before the War were successful at changing policies.”

Begun in 2011, and scheduled to continue for the next two years, Tennessee Civil War 150 will focus on several areas of life in Tennessee, including the role of women, rivers & railways, music, the African-American experience and the Battle of Shiloh. The series will be supported by a comprehensive website and short broadcast vignettes that expand on the content in the documentaries.

"Tennessee Civil War 150" is made possible in part by The Tennessee National Heritage Area, the Tennessee Dept. of Education and the Tennessee Sesquicentennial Commission.

About Nashville Public Television
Nashville Public Television is available free and over the air to nearly 2.2 million people throughout the Middle Tennessee and southern Kentucky viewing area, and is watched by more than 600,000 households every week. The mission of NPT is to provide, through the power of traditional television and interactive telecommunications, high quality educational, cultural and civic experiences that address issues and concerns of the people of the Nashville region, and which thereby help improve the lives of those we serve.