{"storymap": {"call_to_action": true, "call_to_action_text": "", "map_as_image": false, "map_type": "zoomify", "slides": [{"date": "", "location": {"line": true}, "media": {"caption": "Unidentified nurses from University of Pennsylvania tending soldiers on hospital train during the Spanish American War, 1898. University Archives Digital Collection, University of Pennsylvania", "credit": "", "url": "//uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/bc2171fd2dc65da8b99c6c013d2dc670/wingreen/_images/nurses.jpg"}, "text": {"headline": "Amy Eleanor Wingreen in the Mid-Atlantic and Cuba, 1898", "text": "

Born to Swedish immigrant parents, Amy Eleanor Wingreen (circa 1860s-1912) trained as a nurse at Chicago's Cook County Hospital. Under the auspices of the National Emergency Association of Women Physicians, Surgeons and Nurses, she was sent to Cuba to nurse soldiers of the Spanish-American War in July 1898. She wrote, \"We are the first body of women to go out in the time of war under the Government of the United States. What we go to face we do not know.\" Nursing in a camp hospital in Siboney, Cuba, for little over a month, Wingreen contracted yellow fever, but continued with her work until leaving in late August.

Manuscript excerpts from: Amy Eleanor Wingreen letters, 1898. Newberry Library | Map: The American continent, 1869. Newberry Library

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"}, "type": "overview"}, {"date": "", "location": {"lat": 64.24459476798195, "line": true, "lon": 45.52734375, "zoom": 4}, "media": {"caption": "New York journal and advertiser (New York [N.Y.]), July 5, 1898. Library of Congress", "credit": "", "url": "//uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/bc2171fd2dc65da8b99c6c013d2dc670/wingreen/_images/bombard2.jpg"}, "text": {"headline": "Washington, DC, July 17, 1898", "text": "\"I am indeed off for Cuba. Our ship sails from New York Tuesday... To-morrow I have to be down to give my oath just like a soldier which inlists. I asked if it was binding, and to what extent. Mr. Jones said 'No, You can go when you want to. Just notify us.' Only we must be true to the cause & obey orders. That seems real soldier-like, don't it?

\"...You do not know how the life of the city throbs with war. Congress is adjourned, but there is life and hustle among Military men & the War dep is pulsing with work -- every office & sub office is crowded to its capacity with Clerks in the service of this war. It is nothing to see squads of troops marching and officers hurrying to & fro... Every where I and my sister nurses have met with courtesy, and men of note have desired to shake my hand in a common cause, it is worth living for to be thus valued and able to serve.\"

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"}}, {"date": "", "location": {"lat": 68.72044056989829, "line": true, "lon": 55.1953125, "zoom": 4}, "media": {"caption": "U.S.S. Resolute, 1898. Detroit Publishing Company photograph collection, Library of Congress", "credit": "", "url": "//uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/bc2171fd2dc65da8b99c6c013d2dc670/wingreen/_images/4a13985v.jpg"}, "text": {"headline": "On Board the U.S.S. Resolute, New York Harbor, July 19, 1898", "text": "\"It has come - The Supreme moment! All aboard! The gang plank removed. Hurrah!!! Cuba Libre - say the people. Out from the north shore pier into the bay, Bedlows Island to the left, the people on shore are but a small speck in the distance. We are leaving New York behind, and are streaming out into the salt water...

\"It is so cool here to what it was in Washington that I almost felt uncomfortable in the change, but it seemed home-like -- Chicago-like -- and that was comforting. Ah, I shall never lose my love for Illinois, she is first in my heart what ever of beauty of tropic lands may have before my eyes. I shall hold her cornfields and meadows above all else. It is the soil of many recollections that will never fade: and it is my home.\"

"}}, {"date": "", "location": {"lat": -30.977609093348676, "line": true, "lon": 69.873046875, "zoom": 4}, "media": {"caption": "Unidentified nurses on the U.S. Army Hospital Ship Relief off Cuba, 1898. Naval History and Heritage Command", "credit": "", "url": "//uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/bc2171fd2dc65da8b99c6c013d2dc670/wingreen/_images/wws-nrs76.jpg"}, "text": {"headline": "On Board the U.S.S. Resolute, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, July 25, 1898", "text": "\"We had our pictures taken on the Resolute -- first the group of nurses, then the Surgeons and Physicians. I shall give my address to the gentleman who took them and see if he will not send a copy here. I do not think you will know me because my hair is cut and I had I felt a very unnatural excruciating look on my face at that moment. But down into history we go as the first band of women enlisted into the Government of the United States of America. It is a moment to live for, to feel, that some life may be saved by us; some father, son, or husband will be returned to his own by our skill of nursing.\"

"}}, {"date": "", "location": {"lat": -31.87755764334002, "line": true, "lon": 66.533203125, "zoom": 4}, "media": {"caption": "Spanish American war soldiers from Hamline University, St. Paul, MN, circa 1898. Hamline University Archives", "credit": "", "url": "//uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/bc2171fd2dc65da8b99c6c013d2dc670/wingreen/_images/soldiers.jpg"}, "text": {"headline": "Siboney, Cuba, Aug. 2, 1898", "text": "\"There are about two thousand sick soldiers in Siboney. They are not so ill now as some time ago I believe. I asked the quarter master what the death average was and he said it had been fifty a day. A great many Chicago boys are sick...\"

"}}, {"date": "", "location": {"lat": 70.67088107015755, "line": true, "lon": 64.248046875, "zoom": 4}, "media": {"caption": "Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, St. Paul Province, who served during the Spanish American War, 1899. Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet Archives", "credit": "", "url": "//uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/bc2171fd2dc65da8b99c6c013d2dc670/wingreen/_images/sisters.jpg"}, "text": {"headline": "Montauk, New York, Sept. 1898", "text": "\"The night nurse went with me to help administer the enema. He was the sickest man in our row and Archer Wallace of the 71st New York told me afterwards that the poor fellow had kept them all awake with his groans for several nights. He got well enough to go home with the first lot. I never learned his name nor did he know who had saved him but I learned that he was a Massachusetts boy and was quite a lad. I am indebted to Doctor J.R. Pennington of Chicago for my success, the suggestions given by him in his lectures to us. How we hated the subject but how profitable it has been to use. I shall tell him if I ever have an opportunity.\"

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The Military Nurse: Amy Wingreen