2nd Saturday Civil War Series: Faces of Civil War Nurses – Portraits, Photography, and the Making of Caregiving History, with Ron Coddington

In Person in the Lincoln Gallery at ACFL&MH

Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/9370579279
Meeting ID: 937 057 9279

Portrait photographs of women who served as caregivers offer rare, powerful evidence of how Americans understood nursing during the Civil War. These images—made possible by rapidly evolving photographic technology—capture not only grit and determination, but intention: how women presented themselves, how they wished to be seen, and how caregiving entered the visual record of war. By studying these portraits alongside contemporary writing and context, this presentation explores what these women wore, why they served, and how photography helps us rethink who qualified as a Civil War nurse.

Ron Coddington began collecting Civil War–era portrait photography as a teenager, launching a lifelong pursuit to uncover images of men and women and tell their stories. His research has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and a series of books published by Johns Hopkins University Press, including Faces of Civil War Nurses, which inspired this traveling exhibit. His most recent book is Gettysburg Faces (Gettysburg Publishing). Ron is the editor and publisher of Military Images, a quarterly magazine founded in 1979 and dedicated to the study and preservation of historic photographs. He has more than 40 years of experience as a journalist at USA TODAY, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Jose Mercury News, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.