I'm doing a kind of story for my history class [I was forced, not my choice] about how we have to pretend to be pioneers traveling on the Oregon Trail.
So, I want one of the women in my story to be a nurse...
BUT! Was it during this time when the women did not have jobs but stayed at home and cooked and stuff?
Because then would the men be nurses and doctors and stuff?
Kind of need help now... well in the game.. they didnt do anything lol Yes. I know because of the old TV show, "Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman". She was a doctor and if it's on TV, then it must be true!!! yes On the trail some women worked as domestic servants, teachers, and occasionally turned to prostitution.
I don't think women became heavily involved in nursing until the Civil War. Even then, it was a male dominated field and men criticized women who wanted to be involved in a business as gory as medicine instead of staying home and taking care of the family. women werent giving alot of rights until like the 1900s
but some were nurses. but in the oregon trail i think that they were only housewifes and stuff they were suppose to take care of the kids and cook. men didnt believe that women were capable of doing other stuff .
funny cuz now we r overpowering them . HOPE THAT HELPS house WORK is a job in it's self kid the thing that makes it diffrent from any other job is that your not getting paid by some one else... unless you consider your spouse some one.
also on the oregon trail wemon where resposnsible for just about everything that didn't envole hunting and manual laber. they made sure that every one had stuff to ware and yes some did pratice medicine but most men prefered men to do that kind of stuff. woman if u think about it really didn't have it that bad back then, if they had alot of kids then later on down the line it was like free labor Women were not in nursing then except for a few big hospitals. There they were mostly nuns.
Women on the Oregon Trail might be midwives and could have good knowledge of folk medicine. Most of them were married or the sisters or daughters of guys traveling the trail. No unrelated single women traveling alone.
Typical chores on the trail included cooking, washing dishes, doing laundry, making up beds, and keeping kids accounted for and healthy.
The day would start around 4am when women would assemble a quick breakfast and the men would tend to the stock. Beds would have to be picked up and camp struck. As soon as it was light enough to see, the wagons would start moving. Everyone who could would walk. And they would keep walking until around 10 or 11 am.
The train would halt for the nooning (roughly 10am to 2pm). Stock would be allowed to graze, young children would eat, then nap. The women would fix the big meal of the day, wash the dishes from breakfast and do laundry or mix bread for baking. If they had time, they'd nap, too.
At 2pm, camp would be struck again and everyone would walk and keep on walking until nearly dark or until a good water source was found. At that point, beds would be unpacked, everyone would eat again and go to bed.
That's the day in a nutshell. Trains could travel anywhere from 15 to 40 miles per day.
Someone mentioned Dr. Quinn.... The real doctor she was based on was post-Civil War, but not by much. The Oregon Trail heyday was 1848 to 1867. Keep in mind that Dr. Quinn was the exception, not the rule. A lot of women went out west to become teachers. There might have been some women on the Oregon trail who planned to become teachers when they got there. Nursing was not a respectable job for women until the 1850s, but women would certainly have nursed the sick, though it would not have been regarded as a job, but just part of their wifely duties.
But most women would have been going to live as farmer's wives, which is very hard work. It seems that it took money to travel out west, so most of the women who went out there were middle-class women who were not used to hardships. Most women rode side-saddle, which was considered more decorous, but was a lot harder than riding astride. They were expected to muck in with the men when it came to emergencies, doing things like pushing wagons out of the mire, driving teams of oxen, pitching tents, and even handling guns as temporary emergencies. They were expected to fetch wood and water, make camp fires, unpack at night and unpack in the morning, and do the milking if they had cows. Manyh women were pregnant, but they still yoked loaded wagons and coped with morning sickness during the jostling ride. They crossed raging rivers on rafst and helped drag their children up the sides of mountains. One pioneer woman recounted assisting in a birth during a thunderstorm when the pregnant woman was placed on two chairs in the leaky wagon "with the nurses wading around" to assist in her delivery.
The wagons stopped only at nightfall and started rolling again at dawn, and women learned how to do their domestic chores on the move. Some could roll a piecrust on the wagon seat while driving a team of oxen. But there weren't many chances to do laundry, and families went for a month or longer between clean clothes. Some women found it hard to get used to cooking over an open fire. But most adapted. James Clayman wrote that he had watched a woman cooking next to a wagon on a rainy night in 1844: "After having kneaded her dough she watched and nursed the fire and held an umbrella over the fire and her skillett with the greatest composure for nearly 2 hours and baked bread enough to give us a very plentiful supper."
As the trail got tougher and the animals weaker, many families lightened their loads and got rid of everything other than the most crucial possesions. To relieve the animals, people got out of the wagons and walked. Inevitably, women wound up carrying the smaller children. Juliette Brier walked 100 miles through the sand and rocks when her wagon train was lost in Death Valley. She carried one child on her back and another in her arms, while sh eled the third by a hand. Mrs Samuel Young, who had just given birth, climbed the cliffs of the Sierra Nevadas with hr newborn baby in her arms.
Don't ever let anyone get away with saying that women in those d ays didn't have jobs - they had THE most important job in the world - the job of keeping life going. |
