The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) played a critical role in the lives of many Union veterans after the Civil War. Its efforts were supported by its women’s auxiliary, the Woman’s Relief Corps (WRC). Yet scholars do not know much about the evolution of the relationship between the rising WRC and the slowly declining GAR, whose members were dying away in the early 20th century. Here, we evaluate state-level membership and local group data for both associations to determine the nature of their connection from 1884 to 1924. The evidence reveals that the WRC’s auxiliary role helped sustain the GAR while providing an organizational structure that allowed women to chart an independent course.
AinsworthS. (1995a). Electoral strength and the emergence of group influence in the late 1800s: The Grand Army of the Republic. American Politics Quarterly, 23, 319–338.
2.
AinsworthS. (1995b). Lobbyists as interest group entrepreneurs: The mobilization of Union veterans. American Review of Politics, 16, 107–129.
3.
AttieJ. (1998). Patriotic toil: Northern women and the American Civil War. Cornell University Press.
4.
BanaszakL. A. (1996). Why movements succeed and fail. Princeton University Press.
5.
BlightD. W. (2001). Race and reunion: The Civil War in American memory. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
6.
ChamberlainA.YanusA. B.PyeattN. (2017). From reconstruction to reform: Modernization and the interest group state, 1875-1900. Social Science History, 41, 705–730.
7.
ChamberlainA.YanusA. B.PyeattN. (2019). Revisiting the ESA model: A historical test. Interest Groups & Advocacy, 8, 23–43.
8.
ChamberlainA.YanusA. B.PyeattN. (2020a). Expanding the energy-stability-area model: Voluntary membership associations in the early 20th century. Interest Groups & Advocacy, 9, 57–79.
9.
ChamberlainA.YanusA. B.PyeattN. (2020b). The southern question: American voluntary association development, 1876-1920. Political Science Quarterly, 135, 103–129.
10.
ChamberlainA.YanusA. B.PyeattN. (2020c). Exploring the legend of a “nation of joiners”: A research note. The Social Science Journal, 57, 326–333.
11.
ClawsonM. A. (1986). Nineteenth-century women’s auxiliaries and fraternal orders. Signs, 12, 40–61.
12.
ClemensE. S. (1997). The people’s lobby: Organizational innovation and the rise of interest group politics in the United States, 1890-1925. University of Chicago Press.
13.
CoxK. L. (2003). Dixie’s daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the preservation of Confederate culture. University Press of Florida.
14.
CrowleyJ. E.SkocpolT. (2001). The rush to organize: Explaining associational formation in the United States, 1860s-1920s. American Journal of Political Science, 45, 813–829.
15.
DearingM. R. (1952). Veterans in politics: The story of the GAR. Louisiana State University Press.
16.
EnloeC. (2000). Maneuvers: The international politics of militarizing women’s lives. University of California Press.
17.
GannonB. A. (2011). The won cause: Black and white comradeship in the Grand Army of the Republic. University of North Carolina Press.
18.
GiesbergJ. A. (2000). Civil War sisterhood: The U.S. Sanitary Commission and women’s politics in transition. Northeastern University Press.
19.
GiesbergJ. A. (2009). Army at home: Women and the Civil War on the northern front. University of North Carolina Press.
20.
Grand Army of the Republic. (1883). Journal of the seventeenth annual session, national encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic. Republican Book and Job Printing House.
21.
Grand Army of the Republic. (1909). Journal of the forty-third national encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic. Publisher not available.
22.
Grand Army of the Republic. (1920). Journal of the fifty-third national encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic. Government Printing Office.
23.
GuinnL. (2015). Annie Wittenmyer and nineteenth-century women’s usefulness. Annals of Iowa, 74, 351–377.
24.
JanowitzM. (1976). Military institutions and citizenship in western societies. Armed Forces & Society, 2, 185–204.
25.
JohnsonJ. M. (2017). Funding feminism: Monied women, philanthropy, and the women’s movement, 1870–1967. University of North Carolina Press.
26.
KennedyJ. C. (2017). A perfect union: The Woman’s Relief Corps and women’s organizational activism, 1861-1930 (PhD dissertation). Purdue University.
27.
KrebsR. R. (2004). A school for the nation? How military service does not build nations, and how it might. International Security, 28, 85–124.
28.
KrebsR. R. (2010). Fighting for rights: Military service and the politics of citizenship. Cornell University Press.
29.
LeonardE. D. (1995). Yankee women: Gender battles in the Civil War. Norton & Company.
30.
LeonardE. D. (1999). All the daring of the soldier: Women of the Civil War Armies. W.W. Norton and Company.
31.
LernerG. (1974). Early community work of Black club women. Journal of Negro History, 59, 158–167.
32.
LivermoreM. A. (1891). Cooperative womanhood in the state. North American Review, 153, 283–295.
33.
McConnellS. (1992). Glorious contentment: The Grand Army of the Republic, 1865-1900. University of North Carolina Press.
34.
MorganF. (2006). Women and patriotism in Jim Crow America. University of North Carolina Press. (Original work published 2005)
35.
O’LearyC. E. (1999). To die for: The paradox of American patriotism. Princeton University Press.
36.
SchlesingerA. (1944). Biography of a nation of joiners. American Historical Review, 50, 1–25.
37.
SchultzJ. E. (2004). Women at the front: Hospital workers in Civil War America. University of North Carolina Press.
38.
SchulzeS. M. (2016). The Woman’s Relief Corps: “Missionaries of the flag,” 1893-1918 (M.A. thesis).Indiana University.
39.
SegalD. R. (1989). Recruiting for Uncle Sam: Citizenship and military manpower policy. University Press of Kansas.
40.
ShieldsP. M. (2004). Mary Livermore: A legacy of caring and cooperative womanhood in service to the state. In FelbingerC. L.HaynesW. A. (Eds.), Outstanding women in public administration: Leaders, mentors, and pioneers (pp. 49–64). Taylor & Francis.
41.
SilberN. (2005). Daughters of the Union: Northern women fight the Civil War. Harvard University Press.
42.
SkocpolT.GanzM.MunsonZ. (2000). A nation of organizers: The institutional origins of civic voluntarism in the United States. American Political Science Review, 94, 527–546.
43.
SkocpolT.MunsonZ.KarchA.CampB. (2002). Patriotic partnerships: Why great wars nourished American civic voluntarism.” In KatznelsonI.ShefterM. (Eds.), Shaped by war and trade: International influences on American political development (pp. 134–180). Princeton University Press.
44.
SmithI. IIIMarshK.SegalD. R. (2012). The World War II veteran advantage? A lifetime cross-sectional study of social status attainment. Armed Forces & Society, 38, 5–26.
45.
VenetW. H. (2002). The emergence of a suffragist: Mary Livermore, Civil War activism, and the moral power of women. Civil War History, 48, 143–164.
46.
VenetW. H. (2018). Faithful helpmates and fervent activists: Northern women and Civil War memory. In GiesbergJ.MillerR. (Eds.), Women and the American Civil War: North-South counterpoints (pp. 323–339). Kent State University Press.
47.
WinberryJ. J. (1983). “Lest we forget”: The Confederate monument and the southern townscape. Southeastern Geographer, 23, 107–121.
48.
Woman’s Relief Corps. (1894). Journal of the twelfth annual convention of the Woman’s Relief Corps. E. B. Stillings & Co.
49.
Woman’s Relief Corps. (1912). Journal of the thirtieth national convention of the Woman’s Relief Corps. Griffith-Stillings Press.
50.
Woman’s Relief Corps. (1917). Journal of the thirty-fifth national convention of the Woman’s Relief Corps. National Tribune Company.
51.
Woman’s Relief Corps. (1919). Journal of the thirty-seventh national convention of the Woman’s Relief Corps. National Tribune Company.
