2d, To distribute the garments made by them among the people of the surrounding districts which have been reduced by the calamities of the war.
3d, That, beyond this, I design to make no appropriations of charities, but to refer all such applicants residing within the city to the various societies and committees of the same.
4th, To attain this object and carry on the work is required, material, in warm stuffs of both wool and cotton, suitable for clothing for working-men, women, and children.
5th, Money to pay the workers,—sufficient for the number employed.
Strassburg, Dec. 9th, 1870
Miss Barton also sent an appeal to America for assistance in the purchase of material. Her letter to the New York “Tribune” brought her prompt response, and she was not without means for the support of her work. She used the money which was sent to her in such fashion as to make it do double duty. She bought material and had it made into garments largely by the women who needed those garments for themselves or their families. She paid them for their work in vouchers—two francs a day, which was good pay; and she sold them the products of their work at low prices. They received good wages for their labor and good value for their wages, but, wherever they were able, they had to work for the vouchers they got, and pay for the clothing they obtained.
I have some of the odd little two-franc vouchers which she required the women to give. She was not held to any system of accounting, and when there was need she spent money without vouchers; but wherever it was feasible, she did her business in a business-like way, and she taught the women to be business-like. In her final accounting, only a surprisingly small fraction of her money had been expended without vouchers.
On Christmas Day of 1870, her forty-ninth birthday, she wrote to Mrs. Frances Childs Vassall a letter in which she gave an account of her own work and also passed a distinctly unfavorable judgment upon the French as they appeared to her at that time:
“Women’s Workroom”
Strassburg, Alsace, Dec. 25, 1870
My dear Fannie: