United States Sanitary Commission Bulletin [with] Documents of the U.S. Sanitary Commission Volume I and II

United States Sanitary Commission

New York : The Commission, 1886.

Original yellow wraps. Bulletin complete in three volumes in one,  caption titles dated Nov 1, 1863 - Aug 1, 1865. Advts, plans, indices.; Documents incomplete with Nos 1-17, 19-29, 31-37, 39, 40-59, 65, 66, 84-95 present. Binding broken. Soiling and chipping to wraps, loss. Foxing to pages in the Bullentin volume.. Most of the pages in Documents Volume I are uncut and clean and crisp.

An insight on the evolution of medicine during the Civil War, . The United States Sanitary Commission (USSC) was a private relief agency created by federal legislation on June 18, 1861, to support sick and wounded soldiers of the U.S. Army during the American Civil War. It operated across the North, raised an estimated $25 million in Civil War era revenue. The president was Henry Whitney Bellows, and Frederick Law Olmsted acted as executive secretary. It was modeled on the British Sanitary Commission, set up during the Crimean War, and from the British parliamentary report published after the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Women were prominent in the organization, often traveling great distances, and working in harsh conditions, included famous icons such as Louisa May Alcott, Almira Fales, Eliza Emily Chappell Porter, Katherine Prescott Wormeley, and many others.

The USSC’s circulars, broadsides, pamphlets and publications such as the Sanitary Reporter (in the West) and the Sanitary Bulletin (in the East) were vitally important in keeping the public aware and supportive of its work. The Documents are a collection of the papers issued by the Commission to the War Department.