The phrase “humane society” today conjures up notions of a group dedicated to animal welfare and finding homes for adoptable pets. In previous centuries, humane societies were organizations created to save and enhance human lives.
Modeled on the Royal Humane Society that had been established in Britain in 1774, the Massachusetts Humane Society was formed in 1786 in an attempt to reduce shipwrecks and drownings off the state’s coastline. The organization began by publishing information on how to rescue and care for those stranded at sea and by placing lifeboats, lifesaving equipment and small shelters in coastal and island areas. It served as a model for the U.S. Life-Saving Service that was established by Congress in 1848 and was later taken on by the Coast Guard.
By the 1810s, the Massachusetts Humane Society had expanded its scope to include fundraising for institutions dedicated to the physical and mental health care of the state’s residents, including the Massachusetts General Hospital and what would become McLean Hospital. During this period, a number of cities and towns in the state created their own humane societies, including Cambridge. Founded in 1814 by Dr. Abiel Holmes (father of poet-physician Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.) “to provide for the relief and comfort of the indigent sick,” the Cambridge Humane Society sold subscriptions to buy sanitary equipment such as bathtubs, bedpans and bed chairs to lend to city residents who were ill and too poor to afford their own. During its first decade, the CHS also documented and tried to remedy issues that presented a public health threat to the city, as well as helping to pay for a boat to aid in the recovery of people in danger of drowning in the Charles River.
The CHS expanded its scope in the 1820s to include Cambridge residents in dire financial need, ill or not. It began fundraising efforts to provide monetary payments and basic necessities to the poorest Cantabrigians, including subsidizing items such as firewood in times of scarcity and price hikes. The society continued its activities for nearly a century, finally disbanding in 1911 because members felt their mission could be better served by the numerous charities, hospitals and other organizations that had arisen since its founding.
A parallel organization soon developed alongside the CHS: the Cambridge Female Humane Society. This society was established to provide material aid to Cambridge’s poor and sick women, and was headed by Abiel Holmes’ wife, Sarah Wendell Holmes. During the 19th century, it was common for middle- and upper-class women to engage in charitable work for those they deemed less fortunate, and poor women and children were often the focus of these benevolent societies. The notion that women were more sympathetic to the plight of the poor and sick made their involvement in providing aid to these groups a natural choice, and it was widely believed that women could best relate to and serve other women in this way. For many upper-class women like Sarah Wendell, the opportunity to be involved in organizations such as the CFHS provided an opportunity to channel their philanthropic desires at a time they were largely excluded from many other activities dominated by men. The establishment of parallel, gender-based organizations enabled them to engage in the same type of work as their husbands, fathers, sons and other male counterparts.
The CFHS employed a combination of member subscriptions ($1 per year per member – a rate that remained consistent for the entire century that the organization was in operation), special appeals and bequests. The group distributed material aid in the form of foodstuffs, clothing, diapers and other necessities, and maintained an inventory of furniture and other household items to lend as needed. Records show that in its first decades, the vast majority of beneficiaries for the CFHS were of English descent, but this would change as Cambridge’s demographics shifted in the mid-19th century.
As the city’s population grew and changed, so too did the gap between the CFHS’ membership and the women and families it served. By 1864, when the organization was marking its 50th anniversary, a large influx of Irish immigrants fleeing poverty and starvation in their homeland had changed the needs of Cambridge’s poor and the attitudes of those who were providing aid. Reflecting on the group’s first five decades, the CFHS secretary remarked that “bedding, long gowns, woolen hose etc. were lent [when the Society was first founded]. Such a thing would be impossible now, among our Irish population. Until 1846 only one thing was known to be lost or stolen, – a cot bed and bedstead carried off by a poor Canadian woman.”
Almost a decade later, in 1873, the society’s records note that “an objection has been made from year to year by some of the Members that our Charities are mostly expended on the Irish; this is in a great measure true … Charity knows neither race or colour.” Despite this seemingly inclusive statement, many members of the CFHS held fast to the notion that Old Cambridge is “our own ward,” as opposed to “distant” East Cambridge and the Lower Port. One of the society’s most important bequests, the Möring Fund, was earmarked for the “Protestant poor,” belying the deep-rooted idea that the organization should keep the support of English-descended “worthy poor” families at the center of its charitable activities.
As the demographics of the poor community in Cambridge shifted, so too did the CFHS’ approach to meeting their needs. Distribution of food, fuel, diapers and other needed supplies continued, but in 1869 the society added an Industrial Branch, which employed poor Cambridge women in the creation of clothing, undergarments and other linens. These items, sewn by the women using donated fabric, would be sold to the public to help fund the society’s activities. The introduction of a work-for-relief model reflects the changing makeup of those needing aid and the accompanying rise of an ideology that those needing relief should earn it through labor. In the minds of the CFHS membership, the Industrial Branch was providing poor women (many of them immigrants) with marketable skills to lift themselves and their families out of poverty.
By the second decade of the 20th century, the society’s membership was in significant decline, and they decided that their 100th anniversary year would be their last. After a final meeting in 1914, during which members reminisced about their many decades of work, the society handed its mission over to the Associated Charities of Cambridge (established in 1881), a social service agency that had cooperated with the society in its last years, and whose organization better reflected the changing nature of urban social work.
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