I'm finding it a bit ridiculous that she has to sleep on the floor. Especially at the end of episode 2: they find a bed for the new medical student, but none for her? why didn't he offer her his bed?
One of her descendants published a book based on her diary, and her correspondence. It is a resource used by those who study the history of medicine, and by the writers and producers of this show.
Maybe one of us will crack it open, and see if there is a grain of truth to this.
I mentioned elsewhere some of the liberties the producers are taking. The Green family were not political supporters of the Democratic Party, the Party that took the South to secession. The series shows the Green family employing slave workmen in their furniture factory. But various scholarly websites about the family say they NEVER used slave labor in the factory. It had always solely used skilled workers who were free men.
There are different models of leadership. Under one model Phinney might have insisted she would sleep on the floor, so long as any of her subordinates had to sleep on the floor -- to put more pressure on the hospital director to free up enough resources so every staff member had a bed, even if they had to be billeted in nearby homes and businesses. Granted, that is not how it is portrayed. But it is credible.
Note: As a rich widow Phinney it is very likely Phinney could easily have rented a room nearby. Or, if no proud Southerner would rent to her, she could have bought a modest house from someone pulling up stakes, or to have rented or bought a modest house that the Army had seized from someone who wouldn't sign a loyalty oath.
That Phinney didn't plunk down cash strongly suggests that her insistence the hospital billet her was a gesture to prove a point.
Similarly for going two days without eating.
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