Museum of the Confederacy: Soldiers Aid Societies Presentation

On August 6, AGSAS put together a display, presentation and hands-on workshop for children attending the MOC's summer camp "day in a life" program. Click HERE for an Adobe Acrobat copy of the brochure / handout we did on soldiers aid societies for the participants.

Afterwards, we viewed the new "Confederate Nation" exhibit containing a large number of homefront-related items, and had a research appointment with Heather Milne, manager of photographic collections, to view images of CW era southern women in their collection.

Colleen Formby with display showing the types of things sent to soldiers by ladies aid societies.			Cheryl Parlati & Colleen Formby teach participants how to sew poke bags. Young participant works on her poke bag.			Stacy Hampton and Cheryl Parlati show how to sew the poke bags. The MOC is on a modern street -- we weren't suggesting that FedEx delivered soldiers aid boxes -- although in the north, there was Adams Express!
No, this is NOT a medicine show! Kathryn Coombs gives talk on contents of boxes for soldiers, explaining various items. In her hand, a reproduction of a period bitters bottle. ("only for medicinal purposes)			Program participants & MOC Interpretative Staff Director			Abigail & Kyrstie Walker, as usual get the "longest distance travelled" award. They drove all the way from Wisconsin, but didn't arrive in time to change into their period clothes, so Abby gave her excellent presentation on period dyestuffs in modern dress. Participants' reaction upon being told about the process for dyeing indigo? "Ewwwww!!!"
Q&A session included the usual questions about women's clothing and particularly hoops and how they work. ("how do did they make their skirts stick out like that?) Colleen Formby does the honors. "I see London, I see France..."			Just because Kyrstie didn't have time to change after her long trek from Wisconsin didn't mean she had to miss the group pictures!			Kathryn's talk on soldiers aid societies covered their various roles & functions from running hospitals to sending boxes of supplies, to raising money. Participants also got to pick lint and roll bandages.
Colleen Formby & Stacy Hampton			Another group picture			Stacy Hampton & Cheryl Parlati
Colleen & Stacy			Cheryl Parlati			Colleen & Kathryn (and that blasted FedEx truck!)

(click on the images for bigger pictures)

AGSAS Members: click here to go to the Members-Only Section of the Website, for digital images from our visit to the photographic collections
(Note: We do NOT have online publication rights for these images and have paid only for the right to share them among our own membership)