For tens of thousands of Union veterans, Patrick Kelly argues, the
Civil War never ended. Many Federal soldiers returned to civilian
life battling the lifelong effects of combat wounds or wartime
disease. Looking to the federal government for shelter and medical
assistance, war-disabled Union veterans found help at the National
Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. Established by Congress only
weeks prior to the Confederate surrender, this network of federal
institutions had assisted nearly 100,000 Union veterans by 1900.
The National Home is the direct forebear of the Veterans
Administration hospital system, today the largest provider of
health care in the United States.
Kelly places the origins of the National Home within the
political culture of U.S. state formation. Creating a National Home
examines Congress's decision to build a federal network of
soldiers' homes. Kelly explores the efforts of the Home's managers
to glean support for this institution by drawing upon the
reassuring language of domesticity and "home." He also describes
the manner in which the creators of the National Homes used
building design, landscaping, and tourism to integrate each branch
into the cultural and economic life of surrounding communities, and
to promote a positive image of the U.S. state.
Drawing upon several fields of American history--political,
cultural, welfare, gender--"Creating a National Home" illustrates
the lasting impact of war on U.S. state and society. The building
of the National Home marks the permanent expansion of social
benefits offered to citizen-veterans. The creation of the National
Home at once defined an entitled group and prepared the way for the
later expansion ofboth the welfare and the warfare states.
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