Finding aid for the United States Sanitary Commission, Cleveland Branch (Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern Ohio) Records

History of the United States Sanitary Commission, Cleveland Branch (Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern Ohio)

On April 20, 1861 - one week after the surrender of Fort Sumter at the beginning of the American Civil War- The Cleveland, Ohio, Branch of the United States Sanitary Commission (Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern Ohio) was organized. It was established and operated entirely by women, including organization president Rebecca Rouse (wife of Benjamin Rouse), vice presidents Mrs. John Shelley and Mrs. William Melhinch, secretary Mary Clark Brayton, and treasurer Ellen F. Terry. The Cleveland Branch was said to have served as a model for the institution of smaller aid societies in other villages and towns. As with its sister organizations, it later operated under the parent United Staes Sanitary Commission, the latter having been established in the spring of 1861 and suggested by the British Sanitary Commission which operated during the Crimean War.

As a whole, the purpose of the Sanitary Commission was to serve as a supplementary service organization, endowed through private subscriptions, to the militarily preoccupied federal government during the Civil War. It did its work through existing government channels and agencies. The Cleveland Branch participated in the many activities of the Commission which were going on within the embattled states and elsewhere througout the country from New England to New Orleans to San Francisco. In the words of Mary Brayton, the Cleveland Branch "was the first permanently organized, one of the first to enter the field, and the last to leave it; which began with a capital of two gold dollars and closed with a cash statement of more than one hundred and seventy thousand dollars [in February, 1864, it held a Sanitary Fair, resulting in the accumulation of $100,000 cash. Sanitary Fairs commonly staged to raise funds in the larger cities.]; which grew from a neighborhood sewing circle to become the representative of five hundred and twenty-five branch organizations, in disbursing hospital stores valued at nearly a million of dollars; which built and supported a Soldiers' Home and conducted a Special Relief system and an Employment Agency which gratuitously collected war claims aggregating three hundred thousand dollars, at a saving to the claimants of over seventeen thousand dollars."

The Cleveland and other Commission Branches improved military camp hygiene and soldiers' diets, inaugurated a field hospital medical inspection, and cared for the sick and wounded soldiers and their dependents by providing ambulance and hospital service. The Commission fed, clothed, lodged, and obtained transportation for, and even compiled directories of, military hospital patients and disabled veterans. The latter information was a beneficial service to families anxious as to the whereabouts of loved ones in military combat and in zones of the interior. The dead were properly cared for, registered, and buried. Numerous letters among this collection addressed to the officers of the Cleveland Branch testify to the families' gratitude. In addition to the "physical comforts" granted to needy soldiers, sailors, and their families, the Commission attempted to uplift its charges morally and intellectually by supplying them with reading matter and "innocent games." Military men were also provided with stationery and free postal service and encouraged to write home frequently.

View the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for the United States Sanitary Commission, Cleveland Branch (Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern Ohio)

View the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History entry for the Northern Ohio Sanitary Fair

Scope and Content

The United States Sanitary Commission, Cleveland Branch, Records, 1842-1878 and undated, consist of correspondence, reports, memoranda, receipt, cash, and memoranda books, acknowledgements of equipment received, bank drafts, insurance policies, newspaper clippings, and other papers. Includes invoices and other papers concerning the Northern Ohio Sanitary Fair, 1864, and a memoir of Caroline Younglove Abbott concerning the work of the organization.

This collection will be useful to researchers studying the history of Cleveland, Ohio, during and immediately after the American Civil War. Those interested in the history of the United States Sanitary Commission, its Cleveland Branch, and the Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern Ohio will find this collection useful. Those studying the history of women, and the role of women in philanthropy and charity in Cleveland will find this collection useful. Those studying the history of the Civil War, the soldiers who fought in it, camp life, hospitals and medical care, care of dead soldiers, and interactions between soldiers and their families will find this collection useful. Those studying the philanthropic and charitable activities of Rebecca Rouse, Ellen F. Terry, Mrs. John Shelley, Mrs. William Melhinch, and Mary Clark Brayton will find this collection useful. Those studying the history of veterans' assistance, including employment placement, will find this collection useful.

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Access

None.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Subjects:

Preferred Citation

[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 1012 United States Sanitary Commission, Cleveland Branch, Records, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio

Processing Information

Processed by John Large, Jr. in 1962.

Detailed Description of The Collection