The Sanitary Commission in the Field

 

The funds raised at the 1864 Metropolitan Fair supported the United States Sanitary Commission, an enormous civilian affiliate of the Union Army. The Sanitary Commission assumed many duties during the War.

 

Here men and women in Augusta (Georgia?)

hand out doughnuts to Union soldiers.

 

They acted somewhat like the USO in 20th century wars, giving soldiers beverages and refreshments.

 

This Philadelphia "saloon" adjacent to a soldier's hospital announced it's presence with a magnificent eagle sculpture. Volunteers gave soldiers a place to rest, socialize and drink non-alcoholic beverages.

Another volunteer saloon adjacent to a hospital.

 

The Sanitary Commission ran the hospitals too. Following Florence Nightingale's leadership in England's Crimean War, this civilian organization saw a need and filled it.

 

They managed large hospitals in cities like Washington

 

And field hospitals such as this one in Gettysburg.

 

 

Activities went beyond physical nursing.

They had systems for troop mail.

 

Drawing by Alfred Waud

showing the Sanitary Commission tossing tobacco to freed prisoners.

 

 

The USCC also ran lodges---rehabilitation homes for convalescent soldiers.

Above a Lodge for Invalid Soldiers in Alexandria, Virginia.

And a Lodge in Washington.

 

The activities of the Sanitary Commission were well documented. The leaders realized that good public relations increased donations. In many of the photographs we see women, as in this photo of a field station in Fredericksburg.

 

 

Women were not at the very top of the organization but they were, as we might say, middle management throughout the country. In many of the photographs we also see crates and barrels full of materials headed for the hospitals and recovery lodges.

One of the major functions was coordinating donations for the hospitals, lodges, saloons and doughnut stops.

 

Women knitted socks, pieced quilts, stitched underwear and nightcaps for recovering soldiers.

Barrels and boxes from the Christian Commission.

 

 

Wagons full of supplies heading for the front.

 

The Libary of Congress is the source for these photographs of the volunteer societies.
They have scanned many Civil War photos at a high resolution so you can open the TIFF files and examine the smallest details.

Click on this one and open the smaller TIFF file.
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/cwp2003000469/PP/
You can see so much in their faces. I am always interested in how each working woman found a solution to the hoop skirt dilemma. There is quite a range of circumference.

Soldiers Aid Societies in the Union

Sanitary Commission Headquarters

Chicago

 

 

I named my latest Civil War reproduction collection Metropolitan Fair to remember women's fundraising efforts during the war.

 

 

 

The Metropolitan Fair and many of the other ladies' fairs benefitted the United States Sanitary Commission. By the end of the War the Commission, much like the Red Cross in 20th-century wars, was well organized with offices and warehouses throughout the Union. The national and regional organizations coordinated efforts of Soldier's Aid Societies large and small. The millions of dollars raised by the Fairs went to maintaining the organization as well as assisting the soldiers.

Headquarters, New York, in the center storefront

Interior of the Boston office

with socks on the table and a quilt on the chair

 

The warehouses stored items to send to the Soldier's Hospitals and Recovery Homes.

See details of the photo above here:

http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/luas/luastext/items.htm

 

 Christian Commission Headquarters,

probably in Washington City

The Christian Commission did similar service on a smaller scale. Here: wounded soldiers and crates (full of quilts?)

 

Philadelphia

With the red, white and blue bunting you couldn't miss it.

 

This photo of a building on the corner of

F Street in Washington City

is captioned "Sanitary Commission Warehouse"

but it probably includes the offices too.

 

Both organizations were quick to move into battlefield locations and set up headquarters.

 

Sanitary Commission Headquarters, Federicksburg

 

The Christian Commission in a brush arbor at Germantown.

 

"The Shebang," the USSC headquarters at Brandy Station

 

 

And as the Union occupied the South, buildings were commandeered for soldier's aid society offices in Southern cities.

 

NewBern, North Carolina

University of North Carolina Collection

 

Christian Commission

Richmond, Virginia

 

Sanitary Commission

Richmond

 

It is amazing to see the detail in these photos, many of them from the Library of Congress.

 

 

 

 

Metropolitan Fair: Print Names

The scribble print is Knickerbocker Kitchen.

 

The theme of this year's Moda Civil War reproduction print is the Metropolitan Fair. I named each color after menu items in the restaurant at that 1864 event in New York City. See this post for more about color names

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2012/08/metropolitan-fair-reproduction-greens.html

and this post for more about the Knickerbocker Kitchen

http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2012/09/moda-candy-in-knickerbocker-kitchen.html

 

And I named each of the eight prints after another department at the fair. This little foulard looked French so I named it Girls of Normandy.

Women dressed in the traditional costume of Normandy had a refreshment stand and their puffy hats were quite an attraction.

The large stripe I named for the Floral Temple

 

Flowers and flags were the theme of the displays. The fundraising fairs, which were quite extravagant,  featured a building covered with flowers---a floral temple.

 

 

The smaller stripe is Jacob's Well, named for another refreshment stand. The women emphasized non-alcoholic beverages: lemonade and water.

 

 

The rainbow print is Old Curiosity Shop

 

The fairs were somewhat like museums showing unusual and historic items, such as relics from the Revolution, gathered in various departments including the Old Curiosity Shop, named for Dickens's popular book.

 

There were art departments with paintings and sculpture as well as curious items.

 

 

The leaf print is Wax Flowers, named for the many displays of crafts one could buy.

 

 

Donors had spent months making hats, flowers, pincushions and quilts to sell.

 

 

 

The paisley, a little bit exotic, is named Fortune Teller because there was a booth where you could have your fortune read, not by anyone too exotic, but by a charming young woman who was theatrical enough to entertain and raise a good deal of money for the cause.

 

Cartoonists made fun of the things the women would do to raise money. Here the woman on the left is planning to charge money to snip off a lock of her hair---all for the cause.

 

 

The small star print is named Spirit of the Fair after a daily newspaper published during the Metropolitan Fair and handed out to visitors.

The Great Metropolitan Fair was very well documented. Click on the cover of A Record of the Metropolitan Fair.

http://books.google.com/books/about/A_Record_of_the_Metropolitan_Fair.html?id=iTmjRNgDEV4C

And here is more:
http://archive.org/stream/spiritofthefair00macdrich/spiritofthefair00macdrich_djvu.txt

Quilts at the Metropolitan Fair

 

Let's take a little trip in time back to spring, 1864 and the Metropolitan Fair in New York City. I've been looking at a lot of old photos because I named my Moda Civil War reproduction collection Metropolitan Fair. Gather up your hoopskirts and let's trot over to 14th Street.

 

 

14th Street

 

We can find many photos and accounts:

 

"We may begin very properly outside of the Fair buildings. Fourteenth Street, at this point, was unusually light, by reason of a number of gaslamps posted along in front of the entrances...

There is a little crush at the entrance, a confusion of color, a low sweeping sound of silk breaking through the level hum of voices, and we are borne, apparently between two high board-fences, into the great hall of the Fair...

 

A Display possibly from 

Alexandra, Princess of Wales

 

 

Most persons, perhaps, experience very much the same feeling on going for the first time into a great bazaar, — such a multitude of objects press at once upon the senses that for a time nothing is seen...distinctly. One is dazed, and comes back to the usual state of self-possession as if waking out of sleep. Ladies will grasp the arm of a companion a little more tightly, and sometimes may be seen with heightened color and quick breath gazing around, in a wild, wondering way that betrays their feeling.

 

 

A photograph of the "Hartford Table"

looks like an antique booth at a show today.

But order settles out of confusion, and little by little we learn to distinguish the parts which go to make up the whole."

There was certainly a lot of stuff to see. When I enlarge the photos I begin to distinguish the parts that make up the whole. Is that a quilt on the left?

  

 

Could those be quilts right in front of the "Piano made from Wood Taken from the Charter Oak"?

That is probably some kind of banner on the left...On the right?

 

During wartime there were, of course, many martial displays. Here are swords artfully arranged.

With a quilt on the table.

I'd imagine it's an Album block or Chimney Sweep

something like this, but with sashing.

The arch above this display says "Fire Department" and the caption says it is a New Jersey display. The photographer: J. Gurney & Sons.

Two (?) quilts

 

The one on the right sort of like this Railroad Crossing.

 

 

And here is another view of the New Jersey Department.

Under the arch on the left a woman waits for customers. Under the arch on the right...

A bunch of quilts.

A pineapple applique, something pieced

in the center and a basket with sashing.

 

A lot like these New Jersey antiques

 

 

See more about the basket quilt, which was made in 1864, here:

http://barbaradschaffer.blogspot.com/2011/10/1860s-nj-quilts-on-display.html

 Could it be the EXACT SAME quilt?

 

Just what these quilts are doing at the Metropolitan Fair I cannot say. They may have been for sale. Or perhaps they were on display, valued for age or connection to a famous person.

 

 

Two quilts were described in the exhibit at the Curiosity Shop, "that bewildering conglomerate," where one could view "a quilt that had once covered the beautiful Mary of Scotland [and]...a patchwork quilt of calico — bought during the Revolutionary War, when calico was a dollar and a quarter a yard."

 

 

And in another display---an item made notable by the age of the maker: "A silk quilt representing a flag made by a lady seventy years old."

Too much to see. I think I'll run by the Jacob's Well booth and get me a lemonade.