As a result of the split between the North and South, northern women of both races were affected by the political ramifications brought on by the war. During the war years, since Congress was comprised mainly of Republicans, the Republican Party was able to make somewhat unchecked decisions; with all of the dissenting Democrats in the South, Republicans passed many bills and acts, such as the Homestead Act, that fit their ideals. However, as the war continued, Congress’s decisions began to be checked by a certain group that they had never given notice to before — the women of the northern home front.



As previously mentioned, women became vocal in their local and state politics by writing to their mayors and governors. In these letters the women would petition their leaders for more money or for some other compensation, as well voice their grievances over the war. Some even gathered enough courage and went straight to Washington. In August of 1864 a delegation of Philadelphia seamstresses, employed at the Schuylkill Arsenal, had made their way down to Washington with a petition signed by 800 women. With this petition the seamstresses were hoping the War Department would raise the women’s wages and that President Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton would stop government contracting(1). In the eyes of the seamstresses, contracting, which allowed for the expansion of war production without the added costs of hiring new government workers, permitted the contractors to profit generously by paying seamstresses the lowest possible wages.



The president took the time to meet with these women, which meant that he fully recognized the northern war disaffection on the home front. Politically speaking, Lincoln did not have to meet with the women workers, whose petition stated that “Twenty thousand Working Women of Philadelphia have given their all to their country; and who now come to that country, not as beggars, asking alms, but as American matrons and daughters, asking an equitable price for their labor”(2).   Even though these women could not vote for him in the upcoming election, Lincoln recognized the ever-growing ambiguity between the home front and the battlefield. The wives of the soldiers were speaking out more and more, and their opinions would eventually factor into the elections in some way or another. As an effect of their bold address Secretary of War Stanton ordered the expansion of government work as well as a salary increase for seamstresses employed in public arsenals(3).  It was one of the first times in American history that a respectable amount of women took initiative and went directly to the source of their problems for answers. This group of seamstresses would set the stage for future women activists who would take active roles in the Suffrage and Temperance movements of the twentieth century.