Report concerning the Woman's Central Association of Relief at New York : to the U.S. Sanitary Commission at Washington.

Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report concerning the Woman's Central Association of Relief at New York : to the U.S. Sanitary Commission at Washington. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    c at the New York Infirmary for Women, on April 25th, 1861, the providential suggestion of attempting to organize the whole benevolence of the women of the country into a general and central association, was ripened into a plan, and took shape in the following appeal, which, at the instance of the following Committee— Mrs. Dudley Field, Hiss E. Blackwell, M. D., Mrs. Henry Baylis, Dr. Harris, Mrs. Cyrus W. Field, Dr. Bellows, Ch'n., was procured to be signed by the ladies whose names are appended. It was published in all the principal New York papers of Monday, April 29th, 1861. To the Women of New York, and especially to those already en- gaged in preparing against the time of wounds and sickness in the Army. The importance of systematizing and concentrating the spontaneous and earnest efforts now making by the women of New York, for the supply of extra medical aid to our army through its present campaign, must be obvious to all reflecting persons. Numerous societies, working without concert, or- ganization, or head, without any direct understanding with the official au- thorities, without any positive instructions as to the immediate or future wants of the army, are liable to waste their enthusiasm in disproportionate efforts, to overlook some claims and overdo others, while they give unne- cessary trouble in official quarters, by the variety and irregularity of their proffers of help or their inquiries for guidance. As no existing organization has a right to claim precedence over any other, or could properly assume to lead in this noble cause, where all de- sire to be first, it is proposed by the undersigned, members of various circles now actively engaged in this work, that the women of New York should meet in the Cooper Institute, on Monday next, at 11 o'clock A. M., to confer together, and to appoint a General Committee, with power to organize the benevolent purposes of all into a common movement. To make the meeting practical and effective, it seems proper here to set forth briefly the objects that should be kept in view. The form which woman's benevolence has already taken, and is likely to take, in the