The Health Sciences Library is pleased to announce the opening of a traveling exhibit produced by the National Library of Medicine: Binding Wounds, Pushing Boundaries: African Americans in Civil War Medicine. The exhibit will be on display on the 2nd floor of the Lamar Alexander building from Monday, March 5 until Saturday, April 14.
Many histories have been written about medical care during the American Civil War, but the participation and contributions of African Americans as nurses, surgeons and hospital workers has often been overlooked. Binding Wounds, Pushing Boundaries: African Americans in Civil War Medicine looks at the men and women who served as surgeons and nurses and how their service as medical providers challenged the prescribed notions of race and gender pushing the boundaries of the role of African Americans in America.
Through historical images and period documents the exhibit explores the life and experiences of surgeons Alexander T. Augusta and Anderson R. Abbott, and nurses Susie King Taylor and Ann Stokes as they provided medical care to soldiers and civilians while participating in the fight for freedom. “Binding Wounds, Pushing Boundaries opens the door to this rarely studied part of history and brings a voice to those that have remained silent for nearly 150 years,” says Curator Jill L. Newmark.
Binding Wounds, Pushing Boundaries will be accompanied by The “Natural Experiment”: Medicine in the American Civil War, an exhibit produced by the Library’s Health Sciences Historical Collections.
For more information, please contact Jennifer Langford at jwelch30@uthsc.edu.