Effects on Women
Featured Artifacts – The Home Front
The absence of men in the Albemarle region created new
hardships for those left behind. Therefore, women became the sole
caretakers of farms with new responsibilities such as plowing,
planting, and harvesting crops.
“I have finished all the squares for my quilt. I
think I should call it my disunion quilt.”
Taken
from the diary of Annie Darden of Hertford County while working on a
quilt
in the spring of 1861
|
WIG
and BOX
Benjamin Spruill gave his wife Nancy M. Spruill this wig and box when
she lost her hair due to an illness. The Spruills lived at Homestead
Plantation.
Tyrrell
County
|
DRESS,
Second Day
Margaret Bell, wife of Alonzo Etheridge Bell, would have worn this
hand-stitched dress for celebrations the day after her wedding.
Alonzo enlisted in the Camden County Jonesborough Guards of the
Confederate Army in 1861.
Camden
County
|
|
BOX,
Engagement Ring
Christopher Hollowell of Bayside Plantation gave Parthenia Weeks
Gatling of Cedar Vale Plantation an engagement ring contained in this
box.
Pasquotank and Hertford Counties
|
SQUARES,
Quilt
Submit Fearing had these quilt squares. Her son, John Bartlett Fearing,
served as Captain of Company L, 17th Regiment North Carolina
Volunteers.
Quilts were sometimes hung in a window when it was safe for deserter
soldiers to come out of hiding.
Pasquotank County
|
|
CUSHION,
Pin
Women sewed uniforms and provided supplies such as blankets and socks
for soldiers. Their sewing supplies would have contained a similar pin
cushion.
|
