Bright Epoch: Women and Coeducation in the American West

7. "The American Eagle in Bloomers": "Student-Soldieresses" and Women's Military Activity

7 “The American Eagle in Bloomers” “Student-Soldieresses” and Women’s Military Activity The Fair Warriors . . . demanded . . . regulation cadet muskets. lincoln [ne] daily journal, May 11, 1888 Land-grant university environments allowed women the opportunity to take traditionally male activities—literary society debates, athletics, team sports, and school elections—and adapt these for women’s participation. This process of redefining the male student sphere for women’s inclusion , or better, creating a parallel female sphere, was an important part of women’s land-grant experiences. As women feminized the practices and events of college education, they successfully adapted literary societies, debating, journalism, and school elections for themselves, just as they had also sought physical culture classes and team sports. In an astonishing and even revolutionary example of this process, women students sought military training in the 1870s. Land-grant colleges were the first institutions in the United States to offer military training to women in the nineteenth century, with organized companies, officers, and cadets. Female students themselves petitioned for military participation and negotiated their own participation in those regiments. Women observed the military drill that was required for male students and worked to make it their own. Thus, in an important step toward challenging gender separation, women students at western land-grants participated in organized military companies as women cadets, or “student-soldieresses.” Female military training was a significant and unique aspect of women ’s land-grant experiences in the West. Indeed, it was the coeducational land-grant environment itself that led to the creation of women’s military 223 224 | “the american eagle in bloomers” regiments. Female military drill was rooted in the convergence of a few factors . First, women saw the men students practicing their military drill and wanted to experiment for themselves. Probably foremost in the minds of the women students, military marching seemed an exciting, yet appropriate way to get outside for healthy exercise. Administrators’ quickness to endorse this activity for the women came because marching was considered acceptable for promoting female health. Marching was also perceived as helpful to good posture, and the importance of an erect female carriage was highlighted as a benefit in military drilling. Second, the relatively open and progressive atmosphere for land-grant women allowed for experimentation in traditionally all-male pursuits. Finally, women were inspired by a sense of military and patriotic romanticism, especially as they watched the men drilling on campus every day. The uniforms, caps, sabers, and rifles added to women’s sense of curiosity and patriotic interest in military drill. The era of student women cadets ended in 1898, and after the turn of the century, women’s military participation returned to more traditional activities, especially during the wartime years of 1917 and 1918. Like women during the Civil War, women students during the First World War followed a pattern akin to the wartime support of traditional feminine war activities, including nursing, domestic production, Liberty Bond drives, and some political action. A few women on land-grant campuses even found strong political voices in protesting American war involvement.Most,however,gave their moral and political support to the war through student women groups, Red Cross volunteerism, and nursing efforts both home and abroad. Expressions of American women’s patriotism can be traced back to the Revolutionary period, but feminine nationalism got a boost from women’s expanded civic and military participation during the Civil War. Jeanie Attie argued for the central importance of the Civil War in nurturing American women’s patriotic involvement in the nineteenth century. Through benevolent deeds and service, household production, nursing, and other feminine wartime contributions, women began to confront the meaning of their own citizenship and participation in the Republic.1 This sense of civic duty expanded into the political and even military realm, as some women worked as spies or male soldiers in disguise. In the wartime climate, northern women expressed political opinions and also “felt free to vent a belligerency toward the Confederacy.” Many women became engrossed with “the american eagle in bloomers” | 225 displays of militarism, including marches, parades, and artillery demonstrations . Women showed a “fondness for military regalia” including swords, pistols, rifles, and cannons. One group of Maine women gained access to some artillery and presented “a salute of thirty-four guns.” Women like Louisa May Alcott expressed desires to be men so that they could fight, because the “ultimate...