York, New England, and the Northwest, were the wonders of the world in the variety and beauty of their exhibits and the vast sums realized from them. Scarcely a woman in the nation, from the girl of tender years,[1] to the aged matron of ninety, whose trembling hands scraped lint or essayed to knit socks and mittens for "the boys in blue," but knows its work, for of it they were a part. But not a hundred of all those thousands who toiled with willing hands, and who, at every battle met anew to prepare or send off stores, knows that to one of her own sex was the formation of the Great Sanitary due.[2]
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, returning to this country from England about the time of the breaking out of the war, fresh from an acquaintance with Miss Nightingale, and tilled with her enthusiasm, at once called an informal meeting at the New York Infirmary[3] for Women and Children, where, on April 25th, 1861, the germ of the sanitary, known as the Ladies' Central Relief,[4] was inaugurated. A public meeting was held April 26, 1861, at the Cooper Union, its object being to concentrate scattered efforts by a large and formal organization. The society then received the name of the "Woman's Central Relief Association of New York." Miss Louisa Lee Schuyler was chosen its president. She soon sent out an appeal to women which brought New York into direct connection with many other portions of the country, enabling it "to report its monthly disbursements by tens of thousands, and the sum total of its income by millions." But very soon after its organization, Miss Schuyler saw the need of more positive connection with the Government. A united address was sent to the Secretary of War from the Woman's Central Relief Association, the Advisory Committee of the Board of Physicians and Surgeons of the hospitals of New York, and the New York
- ↑ On a pair of socks sent to the Central Association of Relief, was pinned a paper, saying: "These socks were knit by a little girl five years old, and she is going to knit some more, for mother said it would help some poor soldier."
- ↑ The Christian Commission, an organization of later date, never succeeded in so fully gaining the affection of the soldiers, who, in tent or hospital, hailed the approach of medicine or delicacy, with an affectionate "How are you, Sanitary?"
- ↑ Organized seven years previously by Dr. Blackwell as an institution where women might be treated by their own sex, and for co-ordinate purposes, and out of which the New York Medical College for Women finally grew.
- ↑ Women in many other parts of the country were active at as early a date as those of New York. A Soldiers' Aid Society was formed in Cleveland, Ohio, April 20, 1861, five days after the President's proclamation calling for troops. This association, with a slight change in organization, remained in existence a long time after the close of the war, actively employed in securing pensions and back pay to crippled and disabled soldiers. At two points in Massachusetts, meetings to form aid societies were called immediately upon the departure of the Sixth Militia of that State for Washington.
