spheres brushed away like cobwebs, when
women, north and south, were obliged to fill the places made
vacant by our civil war. An adequate record of the work
accomplished during those eventful years by Illinois women,
notably among them being Mary A. Livermore and Jane C. Hoge, lies
before us in a bound volume of the paper published under the
auspices of the Northwestern Sanitary Fair, edited by the Hon.
Andrew Shuman. This little journal was called the _Voice of the
Fair_, a prophetic name, as really through the medium of these
sanitary fairs were the voices of the _fair_ all potent, and
through their patriotic services to our soldiery did the women of
the United States first discover their talent for managing and
administering great enterprises. In his first editorial
Lieutenant-Governor Shuman says:

On motion of Mrs. Elizabeth A. Loomis, it was decided to
open the fair on February 22, 1865, Washington's birthday,
and to continue it till March 4, the presidential
inauguration day. A committee, consisting of Mrs. H. H.
Hoge, Mrs. D. P. Livermore and Mrs. E. W. Blatchford for the
commission, and Mrs. O. E. Hosmer, Mrs. C. P. Dickinson and
Mr. L. B. Bryan for the Home, was appointed as executive.
This was the little cloud, scarcely larger than a man's
hand, which grew till it almost encircled the heavens,
spreading into every corner of our broad land, and including
every department of industry in its ample details.

The undertaking was herculean, and on the grand occasion of the
opening of the fair, although we do not find any account of women
sharing in the honors of the day, yet they were vouchsafed
honorable mention in the following terms by the governor of the
State: "I do not know how to praise women, but I can say nothing
so good as our late president once said on a similar occasion,
'God bless the women of America.' They have been our faithful
allies during this fearful war. They have toiled steadily by our
side, with the most enduring constancy through the frightful
contest." Amid the first impulses of genuine gratitude men
recognized what at present they seem to forget, that by
inheritance and patriotic service woman has an equal right with
man to a share in the rights and p