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.Byrationalizing their work outside the home as an extension of theirdomestic domain and by basing their authority on moral superiority,women were able to establish benevolent societies that took thembeyond their hearths.Ginzberg argues, however, that by the CivilWar a new generation of women replaced the language of genderidentity and a female moral superiority with a more masculineideal that emphasized scientific rather than moral principles. Jeanie Attie describes how the women who formed the Woman sCentral Relief Association (WCRA) hoped to organize women sefforts throughout New York State and the surrounding area bychanneling all of the societies goods through their agency.But, sheexplains, the female directors of the WCRA established a relation-ship of cooperation and mutuality with these various societies anddid not attempt to change the local nature of benevolence.With theestablishment of the USSC in June 1861, however, the dynamicbetween a central organization and the homefront women changedfrom cooperation to bureaucratic dictation.29 Richard.qxd 8/29/2003 1:28 PM Page 101NORTHERN WOMEN RESPOND 101The exclusively male executive committee of the USSC led byDr.Henry W.Bellows, Frederick Law Olmsted, and GeorgeTempleton Strong had, according to Attie, grandiose personal andpolitical plans to transform America s political condition and raisethe moral character of it citizens. The three men believed theycould cloak their demands for leadership in the language of patriot-ism, female benevolence, and the exigencies of military crisis andachieve their goals of nationalism.By promoting nationalism, theyhoped to ameliorate the social and class discord experienced beforethe war.They believed they could achieve their ends by systematiz-ing the impulsive, disorderly and uninformed sympathies and effortsof the women of the country. The USSC would be a national agencyto which all the societies of the North would forward their goods.Supplying armies through state and local aid societies, the commis-sion board told the ladies, was inefficient and wasteful.Attie main-tains that it was not just Bellows s condescending tone that doomedthe relationship between the USSC and the homefront women, butalso the USSC leaders inability to understand the composition ofwomen s benevolence.This new centralized system stripped womenof the control over their labor and with it the social power theygained through their charitable work.Not only did the aid societieslose the authority to determine the destination and use of their gifts,but the USSC demand for a consistent flow of goods to their agencyleft women few resources with which to attend to the needy in theirown communities.Attie admits that women did contribute to theUSSC, but their contribution was inconsistent, and they used theUSSC s efficient transportation system for their own purposes.Thecalls for supplies from state and local organizations and from theother national benevolent agency, the USCC, divided women sefforts and loyalties and allowed them options that were less coercivethan the USSC.30Although the infrastructure of aid societies became more bureau-cratic and efficiency minded, women clung to their traditional meth-ods of benevolence, which were based on the ideology of domesticityand cast within the context of the village.Women were most success-ful in securing goods, labor, and money for the cause through person-al appeals to citizens of their hometowns and in the name of theneeds of the local boys.Likewise, women continued to rely on their Richard.qxd 8/29/2003 1:28 PM Page 102102 BUSY HANDSroles as the moral agent of their families to influence the soldiers per-sonally and to justify their presence in hospital and camp.Attie notesthat the domestic ideal had already lost some power before the warbecause women reformers fighting for women s property rights feltthat they could accomplish their goals only through legislativeauthority.On the other hand, she also attests that middle-classwomen, who believed that their housework and volunteer work hadsocial and moral value, continued to support the cult of domesticity.This is not to suggest, however, that women rationalized their partic-ipation in the war effort solely based on moral superiority.Just likethe men who volunteered to fight, women offered their services, asPriscilla S.Adams explained it for herself, to serve my beloved coun-try in the present struggle for liberty. But rather than work outsidetheir proper sphere, most women utilized domestic rhetoric becauseit still held power and because it was a tried-and-true method ofinfluence.They exercised their motherly authority by simultaneous-ly guiding, encouraging, and correcting the behavior of their malefriends and relatives.They aided their men physically, emotionally,and spiritually to ensure that they returned home as the responsiblecitizens, husbands, and sons that they were when they enlisted.31The support of the true and earnest women of the North camein many shapes, but all methods incorporated reassuring and com-forting familial images.By cloaking their goods with domesticimagery, they were able to project onto the soldiers the much need-ed familial nurture of home.This imagery took the shape of desper-ately needed hospital supplies, common household goods and foods,and luxuries such as cakes, wines, spices, handkerchiefs, and cologne.Less tangible items were the notes of hope, love and cheer includ-ed with these articles and the letters full of sweet home chat andbright visions of the future, as William McClain explained to ananonymous donor.These packages and letters not only met the sol-dier s physical needs, but, more important, bolstered his spirits,boosted his resolve, and reminded him that there were true heartsbeating.and warm souls that remember[ed] him.32After visiting the regimental & Government Hospitals in &around Washington following the First Battle of Bull Run, July 21,1861, Mrs.George Harris of the Philadelphia Ladies Aid Societysuggested to a fellow society member that goods from home would Richard
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