Home Front 1861–1865

Home Front 1861–1865 — page 3 — 6 Home Front Buildings and Homes The influence of mass production was clearly visible in American homes before and after the war They were often decorated in ornate styles with dark furniture and rich colors This typical house of the period was used as a hospital after the Battle of White Oak Swamp in 1862 Freed from family farms people instead worked in towns and cities A prosperous city dweller in the North might build a two-story masonry house A less well-off clerk might move his family to the new suburbs A poor family could only afford to JANUARY 2 SOUTH CAROLINA Fort Johnson in Charleston Harbor is occupied by Confederate troops JANUARY 5 ALABAMA Alabama troops seize forts Morgan and Gaines giving Confederate forces control of Mobile Bay JANUARY 9 MISSISSIPPI Leaders vote to leave the Union Mississippi is the second state to join the Confederacy JANUARY 10 FLORIDA Florida leaves the Union JANUARY 11 ALABAMA Alabama leaves the Union JANUARY 15 UNITED STATES Engineer Elisha Otis invents the safety elevator 1861 march january war civil other events January JANUARY 29 UNITED STATES Kansas joins the Union as the 34th state

Home Front 1861–1865 — page 4 — Buildings and Homes 7 rent a small apartment in a tenement building shared with other renters In rural areas of the North a family might build a farmhouse or occupy an older one Likewise in the Southern states a wealthy merchant in New Orleans might live in a fashionable two-story brick dwelling although most rural areas of the South had a different architecture A nonslaveholding farmer might live in a simple wooden frame house Usually people used building materials that were easily available nearby In the forested areas of the Southeast and Northeast people built wooden frame houses and log cabins In the Southwest people built houses of adobe mud bricks Interior decoration How a house appeared from the outside was a good indication of a family’s status and wealth In the same way the look of the rooms inside also gave clues to anyone who visited the home Before the mid-19th century one room usually served several purposes socializing sleeping and even eating Now rooms became specialized A hall formal parlor family parlor dining room library bedroom all had specific functions and dictated certain activities and behavior Interior decoration became popular and magazines and books giving advice on matters such as colors furniture lighting and wallpapers became essential reading for the wealthy A tenement building on the Lower East Side Manhattan illustrated in Harper’s Weekly JANUARY 19 GEORGIA Georgia votes to leave the Union JANUARY 26 LOUISIANA Louisiana becomes the sixth state to leave the Union FEBRUARY 4 ALABAMA Leaders from the South meet in the state capital Montgomery They choose Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as their president and write a constitution for the Confederate States of America FEBRUARY 7 ALABAMA MISSISSIPPI The Choctaw Indian Nation forms an alliance with the South Other Indian tribes follow later FEBRUARY UNITED STATES The first moving picture system is patented February MARCH RUSSIA Czar Alexander II abolishes serfdom a form of slavery March

Home Front 1861–1865 — page 5 — 8 Home Front Clothing One of the most visible effects of the Civil War on daily life was in how people dressed Many men were in uniform Women in the South faced shortages that limited their choices of clothing This drawing depicts an African American family in typical clothes in their cabin in Virginia In the years immediately before the war people wore clothes that were a clear indication of their social class and wealth There were some common fashions but there was a huge variety in the style fabric and sewing of outfits For those who APRIL 12 SOUTH CAROLINA Confederates fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor in the first shots of the Civil War APRIL 15 THE NORTH President Lincoln calls for 75,000 recruits across the North to fight the South APRIL 19 WASHINGTON D C President Lincoln declares a naval blockade of Southern states APRIL 19 BALTIMORE Mayor George Brown bans Union troops from the city after they are attacked by an angry pro-Confederate mob APRIL EGYPT A search party sets out from Cairo to find the explorers John Speke and James Grant who have gone missing while looking for the source of the Nile River 1861 june april war civil other events April

Home Front 1861–1865 — page 6 — Clothing 9 The formal dress of the time can be seen in this post war photograph of Ulysses S Grant seated center and his family had to work both men’s and women’s clothes were designed to be practical and not to wear out easily The wealthy by contrast wore clothes that were more concerned with fitting the social conventions of the day than with practicality The fashionable costume of the time was based on the crinoline a full skirt over a hooped wire frame All women wore many layers of clothing including undergarments a corset a dress with a fitted upper part or bodice and a cape Few women of any class would go out without a bonnet to cover their hair which was considered immodest Making clothes Women of all classes were brought up to sew and knit While rich families had their clothes made less well-off women made clothes for themselves and their families After the invention of Isaac Singer’s sewing machine in 1851 the process became quicker as garments no longer had to be hand stitched Children’s clothes were designed to last They were often made with seams that could be let out as the child grew Until the age of five boys and girls looked the same as they both wore petticoats After the age of five boys wore pants or knickerbockers baggy pants gathered below the knee Girls APRIL 23 VIRGINIA Major General Robert E Lee becomes commander of land and naval forces in Virginia APRIL 27 WASHINGTON D C Abraham Lincoln suspends habeus corpus a law that protects individuals from being arrested for little reason MAY 9 GREAT BRITAIN Britain announces it will remain neutral in the Civil War MAY 20 NORTH CAROLINA North Carolina is the last state to leave the Union JUNE 20 VIRGINIA West Virginia is unhappy at Virginia’s decision to leave the Union It breaks from the Confederacy and is admitted into the Union APRIL AUSTRALIA Robert Burke and William Wills who led the first expedition across Australia narrowly miss a rendezvous with their colleagues Burke and Wills will die in the Outback JUNE UNITED STATES Aeronaut Thaddeus Lowe demonstrates his hot-air balloon for President Abraham Lincoln May June

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