Women’s Relief Corps, Charles Chipman Post No. 132, Sandwich, 1914

On a tree-lined Sandwich street in 1914, members of the Women’s Relief Corps gather around and aboard a decorated truck outside the Smith House at 19 Jarves Street. Draped in flags and bunting and marked “Chas. Chipman W.R.C. No. 132,” the vehicle was likely part of a Memorial Day or patriotic parade.

This photograph highlights the important role women played in preserving the memory of the Civil War. The Women’s Relief Corps was the women’s auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic, an organization of Union veterans. By the late nineteenth century it had become one of the largest women’s patriotic organizations in the United States. Nearly fifty years after the war ended, women like these organized civic commemorations and helped shape how later generations understood the war and its sacrifices.

The young girl standing at left is nine-year-old Eleanore Smith Green, pictured here with her mother. Years later she donated the photograph to the museum, passing this moment of community memory on to future generations.