In the spring of 1850, while the United States was polarized over the slavery debate and Daniel Webster was negotiating the compromise of that year, the outspoken abolitionist, feminist, and journalist, Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815-1884) unleashed a congressional sex scandal. Frustrated by what she saw as the Massachusetts senator's surrender to the Southern Slave Power, she published an article alleging Webster's marital infidelities with women of color. As a result of the media storm that followed, Swisshelm lost her job at the New York Tribune. This is but one of the many episodes found in her 1880 autobiography, "Half a Century," which is a narrative of the frontier, of the fight against slavery, and of Swisshelm's fearless, compassionate, and innovative work as a surgical nurse treating Union soldiers who had suffered the most terrible wounds of war. (Pamela Nagami, M.D.)
Chapters
1 Ch. 1: I Find Life 9 min 2 Ch. 2: Progress in Calvinism, Hunt Ghosts, See La Fayette 12 min 3 Ch. 3: Father's Death 5 min 4 Ch. 4: Go to Boarding School 14 min 5 Ch. 5: Lose my Brother 9 min 6 Ch. 6: Join Church, and Make New Endeavors to Keep Sabbath 8 min 7 Ch. 7: Deliverer of the Dark Night 14 min 8 Ch. 8: Fitting Myself into My Sphere 8 min 9 Ch. 9: Habitations of Horrid Cruelty 15 min 10 Ch. 10: Kentucky Contempt for Labor 9 min 11 Ch. 11: Rebellion 5 min 12 Ch. 12: The Valley of the Shadow of Death 6 min 13 Ch. 13: ‘Labor, Service or Act' 5 min 14 Ch. 14: Swissvale 7 min 15 Ch. 15: Willows by the Water-Courses 4 min 16 Ch. 16: The Waters Grow Deep 14 min 17 Ch. 17: My Name Appears in Print 6 min 18 Ch. 18: Mexican War Letters 11 min 19 Ch. 19: Training School 8 min 20 Ch. 20: Rights of Married Women 7 min 21 Ch. 21: Pittsburg Saturday Visiter 12 min 22 Ch. 22: Reception of the Visiter 7 min 23 Ch. 23: My Crooked Telescope 8 min 24 Ch. 24: Mint, Cummin, and Annis 3 min 25 Ch. 25: Free Soil Party 4 min 26 Ch. 26: Visit Washington 14 min 27 Ch. 27: Daniel Webster 8 min 28 Ch. 28: Fugitive Slave Law, The Two Riddles 7 min 29 Ch. 29: Bloomers and Woman's Rights Convention 11 min 30 Ch. 30: Many Matters 9 min 31 Ch. 31: The Mother Church 10 min 32 Ch. 32: Politics and Printers 5 min 33 Ch. 33: Sumner, Burlingame and Cassius M. Clay 7 min 34 Ch. 34: Finance and Desertion 14 min 35 Ch. 35: My Hermitage 3 min 36 Ch. 36: The Minnesota Dictator 11 min 37 Ch. 37: Another Visiter 5 min 38 Ch. 38: Border Ruffianism 7 min 39 Ch. 39: Speak in Public 7 min 40 Ch. 40: A Famous Victory 12 min 41 Ch. 41: State and National Politics 11 min 42 Ch. 42: Religious Controversies 5 min 43 Ch. 43: Frontier Life 7 min 44 Ch. 44: Printers 4 min 45 Ch. 45: The Rebellion 5 min 46 Ch. 46: Platforms 6 min 47 Ch. 47: Out into the World and Home Again 10 min 48 Ch. 48: The Aristocracy of the West 10 min 49 Ch. 49: The Indian Massacre of ‘62 8 min 50 Ch. 50: A Missive and a Mission 9 min 51 Ch. 51: No Use for Me Among the Wounded 8 min 52 Ch. 52: Find Work 12 min 53 Ch. 53: Hospital Gangrene 3 min 54 Ch. 54: Get Permission to Work 3 min 55 Ch. 55: Find a Name 9 min 56 Ch. 56: Drop My Alias 5 min 57 Ch. 57: Hospital Dress 4 min 58 Ch. 58: Special Work 6 min 59 Ch. 59: Heroic and Anti-Heroic Treatment 8 min 60 Ch. 60: Cost of Order 8 min 61 Ch. 61: Learn to Control Pyaemia 4 min 62 Ch. 62: First Case of Growing a New Bone 10 min 63 Ch. 63: A Heroic Mother 3 min 64 Ch. 64: Two Kinds of Appreciation 10 min 65 Ch. 65: Life and Death 7 min 66 Ch. 66: Meet Miss Dix and Go to Fredericksburg 10 min 67 Ch. 67: The Old Theater 11 min 68 Ch. 68: Am Placed in Authority 6 min 69 Ch. 69: Visitors 8 min 70 Ch. 70: Wounded Officers 6 min 71 Ch. 71: ‘Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep' 6 min 72 Ch. 72: More Victims and a Change of Base 11 min 73 Ch. 73: Prayers Enough and to Spare 4 min 74 Ch. 74: Get Out of the Old Theater 5 min 75 Ch. 75: Take Boat and See a Social Party 6 min 76 Ch. 76: Take Final Leave of Fredericksburg 16 min 77 Ch. 77: Try to Get Up a Society and Get Sick 6 min 78 Ch. 78: An Efficient Nurse 2 min 79 Ch. 79: Two Fredericksburg Patients 2 min 80 Ch. 80: Am Enlightened 3 min 81 Conclusion 3 min
