Fitchburg Forms Ladies Soldier's Aid Society
On this day in 1861, more than 100 women in the central Massachusetts town of Fitchburg formed a Ladies Soldier's Aid Society. The organization's mission was to support Union men on the front and assist their families at home. Even as their men folk went off to war, often returning badly injured — or not at all — and in the face of rising prices on everything from coffee to firewood, Massachusetts women found the wherewithal to contribute to the war effort. They sewed countless sheets and shirts and knitted blankets and mittens. More than 10,000 similar groups sprang up across the North. After the war ended, many of the women who led these groups became active in the fight for woman suffrage.
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