Benevolent Societies Learning the Skills

Resource 10: Benevolent Societies Learning the Skills

omen were by Dolley Madison, Margaret Bayard money, promote their plan, navigate n the 15th of March, 1806, the female fundamental to the Smith, and Marcia Burns Van Ness . legal requirements, and operate subscribers to proposals for providing reform spirit that The Washington Female Orphan an institution, as is clear from shook America Asylum not only provided for this passage of Joanna Bethune’s an Asylum for Orphan Children met fromW the 1820s to the Civil War . orphaned girls, it reinforced the biography of her mother . These at the City Hotel; Mrs . Graham was But the first steps in their efforts city’s proud determination to critical skills were more often Ocalled to the chair, a Society organized, and a board of came earlier, after the American rebuild after the British attack associated with the world of men, direction chosen . Mrs . [Sarah] Hoffman was elected Revolution, when women began in 1814 (see Resource 8) . but no one disapproved, because to come together in groups and caring for children was well within the first Directress of the Orphan Asylum Society . form benevolent societies . Often In both New women’s moral sphere . So in these Mrs . Graham . . . , or one of her family, taught the they worked through their churches York and orphanages, and in benevolent orphans daily, until the funds of the Institution were and had religious goals, like Washington, societies around the country, women sufficient to provide a teacher and superintendent . . . . running Sunday schools . Other the learned how to put their ideas to societies focused more broadly orphanages work, and later they applied these on charity for people in need . were run by lessons to larger, more political, And truly God has made good his promise towards women, with and more dangerous causes . this benevolent Institution . . . . Having for fourteen In 1806 in Gilbert Stuart, Mrs. all-female months occupied a hired house for an Asylum, the New York, Marcia Van Ness, 1805 . boards of Oil on canvas . Edgewater ladies entertained the bold idea of building an Asylum Scottish Classical American Homes directors, Discussion Questions immigrant Preservation Trust . but they on account of the Society . They had then about three Isabella operated under different state and ✮✮ What new opportunities hundred and fifty dollars as the commencement of a fund Graham and local laws . In New York, the board were available to women who for the building; they purchased four lots of ground in participated in benevolent societies? her daughter, was able to secure a state charter the village of Greenwich, on a healthful, elevated site, Joanna that allowed it to own and manage ✮✮ Why was it socially acceptable for Isabella Graham, 1843 . The Bethune, the facility . But in its early years, possessing a fine prospect . The corner-stone was laid Power of Faith, frontispiece . women to take a leadership role Engraving . New-York joined the Washington asylum had no in a benevolent society when they on the 7th of July, 1807 . They erected a building fifty Historical Society Library, Elizabeth charter, because the married women were barred from so much else? feet square . . . . In that house Mrs . Graham and Mrs . CT .G739 A2 1843 . Schuyler on the board could not legally own Hoffman spent much of their time; there they trained Hamilton, widow of Alexander property . It was on shaky financial Hamilton, and founded the New ground until Congress installed for Eternity the children of those whose widowed dying Sources: Catherine Allgor, A Perfect Union: Dolley York Orphan Asylum . Graham and an all-male board in 1828 . Madison and the Creation of the American Nation mothers they had cheered with the hope that when they Bethune had gained experience (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2006); The Early Years, http://www .graham-windham .org/ should be taken away, God would fulfill his gracious by forming a relief organization The founders of these orphanages about-us/history/the-early-years/ (accessed by M . promise and preserve their fatherless children alive . for poor widows with children were mothers themselves, and Waters, 10-25-2016); “Orphan Asylum Society,” The Encyclopedia of New York City,rev . ed ., Kenneth almost ten years earlier . Another knew how to care for children . T . Jackson, ed . (New Haven and New York: Yale orphanage, this one in the nation’s But opening and maintaining the University Press and the New-York Historical Society, 2010) . Joanna Graham Bethune, The Power of Faith: Exemplified in the Life and Writings of the Late Mrs. Isabella

Saving Washington: The New Republic and Early Reformers, 1790–1860