No Place For Ladies : The Untold Story Of Women In The Crimean War

Local Description

2007, First edition, first printing. A near fine copy only marked by minor bumping on the front edge of the spine. The d/w is unclipped and also near fine with the same minor bumps.

Description

All children learn at school the story of Florence Nightingale - the Lady with the Lamp - who heroically tended the sick during the Crimean War. But she was not the only woman in the Crimea. It is usually assumed that women did not become involved in international conflict until the First World War. But in "No Place For Ladies", respected historian Helen Rappaport proves otherwise: numerous women were actively involved in the Crimean war in a variety of ways. Four wives would be chosen to accompany each regiment of 100 men, enduring the verminridden troop ships and then left to fend for themselves in the barren Crimean terrain, before combing the battlefields in search of their men. Yet the suffering of the soldiers' wives left behind was more terrible. At home, vast numbers of women - including Queen Victoria herself - knitted socks to cheer the soldiers stranded in freezing Sevastopol. Florence Nightingale had a band of unruly, often hard-drinking orderlies to control. Rejected by Nightingale, maverick black nurse Mary Seacole set up her own dispensary in the Crimea.

Author description

Helen Rappaport is a historian and author of An Encyclopedia of Women and Social Reformers and Joseph Stalin: A Biographical Companion. She has presented historical documentaries for Channel 4 and BBC Woman's Hour.