Last updated: March 7, 2022
Article
Women on the Battlefields
Gettysburg and Vicksburg national military parks are the only NPS units now authorized by federal law to administer guiding services. In spite of stereotypes that women aren’t interested in military history, some have been licensed battlefield guides for decades. Although the NPS oversees the licensing programs, the guides are hired directly by visitors or tour groups and are not government employees. Their services, however, directly support the NPS mission at these historic sites.
“Can’t We Have a Man for This?”
The first guides under Gettysburg’s licensing program, which began in 1915, were men. It’s not known when women first expressed an interest in guiding, but Gettysburg Superintendent J. Walter Coleman’s 1951 declaration that “licenses were to be restricted to men” hints that there may have been a few at that time.
The “men only” attitude prevailed until 1968 when Barbara Schutt passed the required examination to become the park’s first woman licensed battlefield guide (LBG). Schutt put her license to use immediately, guiding on weekends while working another full-time job during the week. As a new guide, she wore an olive drab skirt and blouse with a battlefield guide sleeve patch, nametag, and cap. Her badge number was 112.
In 1970 Schutt’s husband, O. Frederick Schutt Jr., was licensed (LGB #117), and they became the first married guide couple. In 1975 she also became the first to wear the new guide uniforms approved by the park. For women the uniform consisted of a gray skirt, white mock turtleneck, navy blue blazer, and navy pocket bag.
In a later interview, Schutt noted that women tend to have better “people skills” for a career in guiding. “I had more patience with the groups and with children and frankly, some of the male guides didn’t.” After 22 years, Schutt retired in 1990 wearing badge #38. She died in 2017.
Janet Guise (LBG #104) and Mary Swope (LGB #134) followed in Schutt’s footsteps, becoming licensed in 1970.
In 1974 the NPS appointed park technician Nora Saum guide supervisor. She implemented the requirement for a two-hour oral examination conducted as a tour of the battlefield, in addition to the two-hour written exam. Saum continued to oversee the guide program until she retired in 1980. In retirement she became a licensed guide (LGB #5), working almost another decade in the park.
Debra Novotny (LGB #14) passed the written test of 200 fill-in-the blank and essay questions in 1972 but had to wait 3.5 years before she could take the oral exam. The number of licenses issued was limited, so she had to wait until a guide retired. Finally in 1975 she took her oral exam (in the middle of a blizzard) and became the fourth woman guide at the park.
For the first couple of years she guided part time, but in 1978, after earning her master’s degree, she began working as a full-time guide. Earning a living proved challenging, and she began substitute teaching. In 1980 Novotny became a part-time guide again during her 30-year teaching career, returning to full-time guiding after retiring from the school system. She recalled that men tourists were often difficult clients as “they really don’t think women should know military history.” Novotny was a licensed guide at Gettysburg for more than 43 years.
As a freshman at Gettysburg College in 1938, Suzanne Harbach attended the 75th (and last) reunion of Civil War veterans. She recalled that experience, along with family stories about her grandfather’s war experiences, when she began working as a licensed guide in 1984, a position she held for more than 22 years. In 1995 Sherri Freed was the first person to earn a perfect score on Gettysburg’s written guide examination. She was one of only four women among the almost 190 people who took the exam that year. The second highest scorer was also a woman, while Trisha Murphy scored in the top 5 percent. Freed recalled in 1995 that many men didn’t believe that women could grasp military history. “It sounds like such an old fashioned attitude, but it is still present. I’ve even had gentlemen out at Gettysburg who, when they come to my particular presentation or tour, will look at me and roll their eyes. And some of them are very vocal. They’ll say, ‘Can’t we have a man for this?’”
In 1979 there were 77 licensed guides at Gettysburg; 14 (18%) were women. By 1999 the number of women had increased slightly to 15, but they made up only 15% of the 117 licensed guides. Christine Wolfe (LBG #153) was one of them. Diana Loski, author of Civil War books for children and adults, was another. Joy Boden, a high school gym teacher, worked as a part-time guide on weekends for at least six years. Although the women guides know the military history as well as the men, Boden noted that many of the women “do a little more human-interest things, but you know quite frankly the people like to hear that because not all the people that come here are military people.”
According to the Association of Licensed Battlefield Guides-Gettysburg, 50 women have been licensed since Schutt led the way. Some of them include Linda Clark (LGB #47) in 1979; Louise Arnold-Friend (LGB #73) in 1983; Kim Hostetter (LGB #102) in 1997; Andie Custer in 1998; Ellen Gonsalves (LGB #212); Renae MacLachlan (LGB #188); Christina Moon (#235); Susan Boardman in 2005; and Susan Strumello (LGB #30) in 2013.
In 2018 there were only 17 women guides. Today guides like Therese Orr (LGB #236) and Mary Turk-Meena (LGB #95) must pass a multi-phase licensing examination process. In addition to the written exam, there is a panel interview, field practicum, oral battlefield exam, and post-licensing orientation. As of August 2021, 12% of the 143 active guides at Gettysburg were women.
Guide uniforms have also changed. In the 1980s, the uniform blazer was replaced by a vest. Today both men and women wear gray slacks and blue shirts with Association of Licensed Battlefield Guides patches on the sleeves. Some wear guide badges on their belts
“The Magnolia Mafia”
In contrast to Gettysburg, Vicksburg National Military Park licensed women guides early and often. In fact, until recently, most guides were women. Vicksburg’s licensed guide program began in the early 1950s, building on a tradition of women tour guides in the city.
In The Romance and Reality of Vicksburg, Harris Dickson described "an organization of clever and well-trained young women, known as the 'Girl Guides' which includes youthful matrons, college graduates, and vivacious debutantes" who led tours of the city from the lobby of the Hotel Vicksburg. The Vicksburg Guide Service appears to have been started by the Pilgrimage Club. One newspaper account describes "a trained corps of college girls" giving tours in 1940. Although the emphasis was on tours of the city's antebellum homes, at least one woman guide gave a tour of the Vicksburg Battlefield in April that year. Three women are known to have volunteered as battlefield guides at the park in the early 1950s. Jo Willow Shaw Biedenharn may have been one but the names of the other two are unknown.
Vicksburg native Mary Lyerly Birdsong Duval was the first NPS-licensed guide, leading her first tour on March 9, 1953, when she was 38 years old. She was born in 1914 and attended Mississippi University for Women before teaching children in Costa Rica for eight years. She returned to the United States in 1941 and married in 1942. When she was guiding, people referred to her as “the lady with the old book,” a reference to a folder full of newspaper clippings and other documents she carried and shared on her tours. Duval was a licensed guide for 46 years, retiring in 1999. She died in 2002 at the age of 87.
For many years there appears to have been overlap between the city and NPS-licensed guides. A 1954 newspaper account described the Vicksburg Guide Service as a “group of civic-minded women who are licensed to conduct tours through the Vicksburg Military Park and the city.” From January to April 1953, the women led 230 tours. During that same period the next year, 275 tours were given. Tours were initially free of charge, but eventually a $.50 fee was implemented.
Pat Strange, from Port Gibson, Mississippi, earned her license on December 7, 1978, a year after her husband earned his. At that time, the process to obtain a guide license included attending a seminar with the park historian, taking a tour of the park, sitting a written exam, and passing an “oral exam” that consisted of giving a tour to park interpreter and historian Albert Scheller. Strange only missed one question on the written exam but had to take the oral exam twice. She recalls that Scheller, who had a photographic memory, would interrupt and ask for sources of information on the spot during the exam, making her nervous. She almost didn’t retake the exam but persevered and passed the second time.
When Strange began working as a guide in 1978, the NPS-sanctioned uniform consisted of khaki trousers, a navy shirt with a round guide patch, a brown name tag, and shoes in the color and style of her choice. All tours lasted two hours. Car tours were $7, motorcoach tours were $15, and city tours (using personal vehicles) were $12.
Strange guided full-time from 1978 to 1981, although in truth guiding is always piecemeal work subject to bookings. From 1981 to 2019 she guided part time while working first for the Mississippi State Welcome Center (1981–1989) and then the convention and visitors bureau (1990–2019). For the latter position, she was stationed in the park visitor center and, as a result, got to know many park employees and visitors. She also volunteered occasionally for the park, including portraying Union soldier Albert Cashier (who was the woman Jenny Hodges) at the “Shadows of the Past” candlelight tour in 2009. Following her retirement in February 2019, Strange returned to guiding full time. The coronavirus pandemic in 2020 had a huge impact on the licensed guide community, but in December 2021, Strange enjoyed her 43rd anniversary as a licensed park guide.
Virginia Roberta Ward Alexander moved to Vicksburg in 1940. With a bachelor’s degree from Mississippi State College for Women and a master’s degree from Mississippi State University, Alexander taught at area schools and community colleges for over 20 years. To Alexander, born in 1913, the story of the Civil War was family history. Her grandfather fought for the Confederacy when he was just 19 and two of his brothers, aged 17 and 21, were killed during the war. Alexander was a client on one of Duval’s tours, and at the end Duval encouraged her to “get out and learn it.” She did, becoming one of the park’s 11 licensed guides in 1984. Alexander became well-known for the pink parasol she carried on her tours and as “queen of the guides” by the other women. At 89 years old, she was seen rolling down a hill to demonstrate how “Confederate soldiers took a hit.” She died in 2004 at the age of 91.
Licensed guide Juanita Levi Hackett, born in 1904, also had a direct connection to the Civil War. She and her half-sister Ella were known as the “blue-gray sisters” because their fathers fought on different sides of the war. Hackett’s father was just 12 years old when he joined the Confederate army and fought with General Nathan Bedford Forrest in Alabama. Hackett’s tours were so popular in the 1980s that she was booked months ahead of time. She died at age 85 in 1989.
A newspaper account in 1983 called licensed guide Betty Groome part of the “magnolia mafia,” which it described as an “army of Southern women who as volunteers and paid guides are keeping the magic of the antebellum South alive.” Not all park guides were Southerners, however. Chicagoan Virginia M. Harrell was an editor and publisher as well as a park guide before her death at age 78 in 1991. Born in the Philippines, Myrtle Holt Whatley moved to Vicksburg in 1934. Upon her death at age 78 in 1989 her family remarked on her love of history and explained her interest in working as a licensed park guide simply because “it was just in her heart to do it.”
Vicksburg native Katherine Amelia Fields became a licensed guide following a 35-year career as chief of the mail and records division of the Mississippi River Commission. She guided for many years before dying at age 92 in 2000.
Other women guides included Mary V. Kerst, Lucille True, Hilda White, Pat Tucker, and Charlotte Richter. Norma Daughtry was a guide around 1980. Joyce Hill was licensed in 1984. Betty England was working as a licensed guide in 1995, and Barbara McCleese was one in 1997.
Over the past 70 years, there have been changes in the Vicksburg licensed guide program. Most have been minor. Guides initially paid $0.25 per tour to the Vicksburg Guide Association. Today it is $25 per year. The uniform shirt color was changed from blue to green. Brown became the specified color of shoes. A name tag proudly states, “Licensed Park Guide.” The official guide patch was redesigned. Not unreasonably, tour prices have increased over time. Although the content may have changed somewhat, seminars and oral and written exams remain part of the licensing process.
Perhaps the biggest change—and arguably the least understood one—has been the downward trend in the ratio of women to men guides. In 1977, 13 of the 15 (87%) licensed guides were women. In 1999, it was 56% (10 of 18). As of November 2021, only Pat Strange, Joyce Hill, and Myra Logue were licensed women battlefield guides, representing just 8% of the 23 active guides.
Explore More!
To learn more about Women and the NPS Uniform, visit Dressing the Part: A Portfolio of Women's History in the NPS.
This research was made possible in part by a grant from the National Park Foundation.