Frances Patai Papers

Today was the first day i spent in the archives. After much deliberation, I finally decided on Box #1 one of the Frances Patai Papers. After rummaging through the documents, I finally found two things in particular that stuck out: the Hilda Roberts Bell and the Ruth Davidow interviews and stories; I had decided to focus on women in the war effort, particularly nurses.

The picture included in this blog is of Hilda Bell, a nurse in Murcia who, in her spare time, wrote fictional stories about her life in Spain during the rise of fascism. Born in Pennsylvania in 1915, Bell was born into a poor, Jewish family speaking primarily Yiddish. During her late teen years and early twenties, she began to develop an interest in the conflict in Spain for not only political reasons but also for her humanitarianism reasons. Bell left the United States when she was only 21, having just joined the Communist Party in the United States.
In Spain, Bell worked primarily as a nurse for the wounded and injured soldiers. Interestingly enough, the United States' nurses were the primary people who taught the Spaniards how to read and write their own language. Through her work. Bell realized that the Spanish people took pride in every little thing that they did to help the war effort, even if it was just scrubbing down the hospital floors.
According to Bell, "The most difficult part of (her) Spanish Experience (was): Ingenuity, Improvising." Short of many necessary supplies, nurses had to make do with what they could. In regards to blood transfusions, many Spaniards had syphilis, and therefore, Bell had decided to give her own blood to the soldiers in need. However, despite the disadvantages and poor living conditions of Spain, Bell found more sexual equality in Spain rather than in the United States, as the doctors in Spain treated er more equally and fairly. Bell has also said that she has "no regrets. (She) would go again."

Ruth Davidow, like Hilda Bell was a nurse who was born in Volkasvik, Russia and emigrated to Brooklyn. Davidow was born into a poor, Jewish family, and had to work to put herself through school. Of her intervention in the war, Davidow said, "I don't think both sides are right; you have to take sides. There is only one side for me, the side with the people who are oppressed."
Upon arriving in Spain, Davidow came down with malaria, however, she claimed that she only cared about the soldiers' well being and not her own. When she completed her service in Spain, she too like Bell related that she would go back to Spain in an instant to be with the doctors and nurses she cared for and missed so much.

With the study of these two women and their role in the Spanish Civil War, many questions come to mind:

1. Why did these women feel this way about war when it was tearing apart the country?
2. Why did people in the US show so much opposition to them going to Spain, when they were helping fight against fascism?
And lastly,

Why does it seem like women were only given seemingly domestic roles and little gratification when the things that they did are equal to the fighting that many men did?