Civil War Army Nurses Memorial - Boston, MA
Posted by: 
Metro2
N 42° 21.496 W 071° 03.794
19T E 330086 N 4691617
This Memorial is located inside the Massachusetts State House
Waymark Code: WMNR2P
Location: Massachusetts, United States
Date Posted: 04/22/2015
Views: 5
This Boston Art Commission website (
visit link) provides the following information:
"Army Nurses Memorial
ARTIST:
Bela Lyon Pratt
LOCATION:
State House map it
NEIGHBORHOOD:
Downtown
TYPE:
Memorial
YEAR:
1914
MEDIUM:
Bronze
COLLECTION:
Massachusetts State House
FUNDERS:
Army Nurses Memorial Association
DESCRIPTION:
The memorial in Nurses Hall in the State House is a tribute to the women who served in the Civil War nursing corps: “Angels of Mercy and Life Amid Scenes of Conflict and Death.” The sculpture by Bela Lyon Pratt (1867-1917) depicts a kneeling nurse, appearing on a battlefield, to support a fallen soldier while she offers him a drink of water. In Nineteenth-Century America it was highly unusual for a woman to become a nurse. Estimates of women nurses in the Civil War vary from two thousand to eight thousand on both sides, perhaps no more than a quarter of the total number of nurses. If it was exceptional for a woman to become a nurse, it would have been even more exceptional for a female nurse to serve on a battlefield, though a few women did. The women nurses were praised for having served the wounded from either side with equal care. The monument was commissioned by the Army Nurses Memorial Association. The association was sponsored by the Daughters of Veterans of the Civil War, an affiliate of the Massachusetts Department of the Grand Army of the Republic, an association of Union Civil War veterans. The monument was dedicated in 1914, and may be only one of two dedicated to the Civil War’s women nurses."
The sculpture rests on a marble base. The front of the base is inscribed:
"TO THE ARMY NURSES
FROM 1861 TO 1865
ANGELS OF MERCY AND LIFE
AMID SCENES OF CONFLICT AND DEATH
A TRIBUTE OF HONOR AND GRATITUDE
FROM THE MASSACHUSETTS DEPARTMENT
DAUGHTERS OF VETERANS
1914 "
The Massachusetts State House is open to the public Monday through Friday from 8:45 am to 5 pm.