Woman's Relief Corps

The Woman's Relief Corps (WRC) is the official women's auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic, recognized in 1883.

The National Woman's Relief Corps, Auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic, Inc., is a patriotic organization whose express purpose is to perpetuate the memory of the Grand Army of the Republic, as their auxiliary organized at their request on July 25 and 26, 1883 in Denver, Colorado, and incorporated by Public Act of the 87th Congress on September 7, 1962.

The W.R is one of the many women's organizations that were founded after the American Civil War. In 1879, a group of Massachusetts women started a "secret" organization and its members were to be women who were loyal to the North during the American Civil War.

From 1879, the WRC held as the primary means to identify women who were eligible to become members was remaining loyal to the Union. It didn't matter where the applicants lived during the Civil War as long as they could prove loyal to the Union. While it might be easy to assume that this organization was only for white women, there were many Posts across the country that had African-American women as members. The only challenge identifying these women is that the WRC records do not specify the races of its members very often. The organization was designed to assist the GAR, promote and help run Memorial Day (alongside the GAR), petition the federal government for nurses pensions, and promote patriotic education.

Being the official auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic, the WRC could not just operate as it wished or do whatever it pleased. The founding members of the W.R.C. had to write rules and regulations that the GAR would approve of and also ran along similar lines of what the GAR was doing. The Rules and Regulations for the Government of the Woman's Relief Corps stipulated three main objectives. The third of these objectives was to "maintain true allegiance to the United States of America" and teach patriotism and "love of country."

The numbers of state and territory departments and posts changed regularly from year to year. In 1892, the WRC. was made up of 45 departments, provisional departments, and detached corps of various territories and states. There was a combined total of 2,797 corps (chapters) across the country. In 1892, the WRC also had 98,209 members.

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