Half a Century


Read by Pamela Nagami

(4.6 stars; 5 reviews)

In the spring of 1850, while the United States was polarized over the slavery debate and Daniel Webster was negotiating the compromise of that year, the outspoken abolitionist, feminist, and journalist, Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815-1884) unleashed a congressional sex scandal. Frustrated by what she saw as the Massachusetts senator's surrender to the Southern Slave Power, she published an article alleging Webster's marital infidelities with women of color. As a result of the media storm that followed, Swisshelm lost her job at the New York Tribune. This is but one of the many episodes found in her 1880 autobiography, "Half a Century," which is a narrative of the frontier, of the fight against slavery, and of Swisshelm's fearless, compassionate, and innovative work as a surgical nurse treating Union soldiers who had suffered the most terrible wounds of war. (Pamela Nagami, M.D.) (10 hr 20 min)

Chapters

Ch. 1: I Find Life 9:24 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 2: Progress in Calvinism, Hunt Ghosts, See La Fayette 12:08 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 3: Father’s Death 4:42 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 4: Go to Boarding School 14:13 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 5: Lose my Brother 9:18 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 6: Join Church, and Make New Endeavors to Keep Sabbath 8:24 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 7: Deliverer of the Dark Night 14:17 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 8: Fitting Myself into My Sphere 8:08 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 9: Habitations of Horrid Cruelty 14:59 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 10: Kentucky Contempt for Labor 9:29 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 11: Rebellion 5:24 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 12: The Valley of the Shadow of Death 6:08 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 13: ‘Labor—Service or Act’ 4:32 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 14: Swissvale 6:37 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 15: Willows by the Water-Courses 3:34 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 16: The Waters Grow Deep 13:49 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 17: My Name Appears in Print 6:11 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 18: Mexican War Letters 11:12 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 19: Training School 8:18 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 20: Rights of Married Women 6:36 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 21: Pittsburg Saturday Visiter 11:42 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 22: Reception of the Visiter 6:45 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 23: My Crooked Telescope 8:00 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 24: Mint, Cummin, and Annis 3:04 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 25: Free Soil Party 4:13 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 26: Visit Washington 13:47 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 27: Daniel Webster 8:16 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 28: Fugitive Slave Law—The Two Riddles 6:32 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 29: Bloomers and Woman’s Rights Convention 10:33 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 30: Many Matters 8:42 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 31: The Mother Church 9:57 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 32: Politics and Printers 4:41 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 33: Sumner, Burlingame and Cassius M. Clay 7:17 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 34: Finance and Desertion 13:52 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 35: My Hermitage 2:51 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 36: The Minnesota Dictator 10:58 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 37: Another Visiter 5:29 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 38: Border Ruffianism 7:09 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 39: Speak in Public 6:42 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 40: A Famous Victory 11:57 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 41: State and National Politics 10:38 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 42: Religious Controversies 5:29 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 43: Frontier Life 7:08 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 44: Printers 3:48 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 45: The Rebellion 4:41 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 46: Platforms 5:56 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 47: Out into the World and Home Again 10:04 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 48: The Aristocracy of the West 10:06 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 49: The Indian Massacre of ‘62 7:41 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 50: A Missive and a Mission 8:41 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 51: No Use for Me Among the Wounded 8:17 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 52: Find Work 12:25 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 53: Hospital Gangrene 3:27 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 54: Get Permission to Work 2:45 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 55: Find a Name 9:14 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 56: Drop My Alias 4:31 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 57: Hospital Dress 3:55 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 58: Special Work 5:30 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 59: Heroic and Anti-Heroic Treatment 8:28 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 60: Cost of Order 8:06 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 61: Learn to Control Pyaemia 3:30 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 62: First Case of Growing a New Bone 10:14 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 63: A Heroic Mother 3:21 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 64: Two Kinds of Appreciation 10:13 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 65: Life and Death 7:26 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 66: Meet Miss Dix and Go to Fredericksburg 10:16 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 67: The Old Theater 11:22 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 68: Am Placed in Authority 5:57 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 69: Visitors 7:59 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 70: Wounded Officers 5:30 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 71: ‘Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep’ 5:55 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 72: More Victims and a Change of Base 10:35 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 73: Prayers Enough and to Spare 3:58 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 74: Get Out of the Old Theater 5:14 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 75: Take Boat and See a Social Party 6:06 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 76: Take Final Leave of Fredericksburg 16:08 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 77: Try to Get Up a Society and Get Sick 5:42 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 78: An Efficient Nurse 2:16 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 79: Two Fredericksburg Patients 1:48 Read by Pamela Nagami
Ch. 80: Am Enlightened 2:57 Read by Pamela Nagami
Conclusion 2:54 Read by Pamela Nagami