Woman's Relief Corps

The National Woman's Relief Corps, Auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic, Inc., (NWRC) is a national women's patriotic organization in the United States. The NWRC expresses that among other tenets, a primary purpose is to perpetuate the memory of the Grand Army of the Republic, (GAR) (a Civil War Union veterans' advocacy organization). The NWRC is the GAR'S only legally recognized auxiliary and was organized at the specific request of the GAR. A formal Charter was drawn on July 25 and 26, 1883 in Denver, Colorado. It was subsequently incorporated by Public Act of the 87th Congress on September 7, 1962.[1] E. Florence Barker was elected as its first national president.

The W.R.C is one of the many women's organizations that were founded after the American Civil War. In 1879, a group of Massachusetts women started a "secret" organization and its members were to be women who were loyal to the North during the American Civil War.[2]

From 1879, the WRC held as the primary means to identify women who were eligible to become members was remaining loyal to the Union. It didn't matter where the applicants lived during the Civil War as long as they could prove loyal to the Union. While it might be easy to assume that this organization was only for white women, there were many Posts across the country that had African-American women as members. The only challenge identifying these women is that the WRC records do not specify the races of its members very often. The organization was designed to assist the GAR, promote and help run Memorial Day (alongside the GAR), petition the federal government for nurses pensions, and promote patriotic education.

Being the official auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic, the WRC could not just operate as it wished or do whatever it pleased. The founding members of the W.R.C. had to write rules and regulations that the GAR would approve of and also ran along similar lines of what the GAR was doing. The Rules and Regulations for the Government of the Woman's Relief Corps stipulated three main objectives. The third of these objectives was to "maintain true allegiance to the United States of America" and teach patriotism and "love of country."[3]

The numbers of state and territory departments and posts changed regularly from year to year. In 1892, the WRC. was made up of 45 departments, provisional departments, and detached corps of various territories and states. There was a combined total of 2,797 corps (chapters) across the country. In 1892, the WRC also had 98,209 members.[4]

Early on in the creation of the WRC, Memorial Day was used to teach patriotism and nationalism to children of all ages across the North (there was an effort in the South, but there was a great deal of resistance). The members of the Woman's Relief Corps with the assistance of children would make floral wreaths and place them alongside American Flags at the graves of Union veterans and nurses who died during and since the Civil War.[5]

The members of the GAR and WRC viewed Memorial Day as a holy day, but by 1915, the organizations were combating the view that Memorial Day was now a holiday and the memory of the Civil War began to dwindle.[6]

• Carrie Thomas Alexander-Bahrenberg, national secretary
• Isabel Worrell Ball
• Emma Eliza Bower
• Nettie Sanford Chapin
• Della Whitney Norton
• Kate Pier
• Susan Augusta Pike Sanders
• Kate Brownlee Sherwood
• Hannah Tyler Wilcox
• Susie King Taylor
• Mary Jewett Telford, charter member
• Pauline O'Neill (suffrage leader) , president of 2 Arizona corps

• Official website