The Metropolitan Fair was a public event organized in the Metropolitan City of New York by the United States Sanitary Commission to raise funds and supplies for the Union Army during the American Civil War, (from 1861 to 1865). The first Metropolitan Fair was announced by The New York Times on January 1, 1864, and to be held on March 28 of that year However, the event was postponed until April 4, and it resulted in the largest Sanitary Fair ever which raised over a million dollars for the Union cause.
Sanitary Fair's history
In November 1863 the president of the United States Sanitary Commission, Dr. Henry Whitney Bellows, wrote on a paper called "Rough Hints" the main principles that needed to be applied to hold a fair in New York. It stated:
To be Metropolitan, the Fair must be:
On a National scale — its magnitude and results worthy of the occasion, the place, and the necessity. It must be universal. Enlisting all sympathies from the highest to the lowest; democratic, without being vulgar; elegant, without being exclusive; fashionable, without being frivolous; popular, without being mediocre. In short, it must be inspired from the higher classes but animate, include, and win the sympathies and interest of all classes. To accomplish this, it must be diversified, various, many-sided: everybody must can do and buy something. It is important to gratify the sober and to please the gay, to meet the views and approbation of the serious and utilitarian, while catching the eyes, the tastes, and the proclivities of the young, the light-hearted, the thoughtless, and the frivolous. It must have the support of our good people, our rich people, our fashionable people, our politicians, our civic fathers, our clergy, Chamber of Commerce, police, fire department, trades-unions, and all the great industrial establishments.
These suggestions were accepted during a meeting between approximately fifty or sixty ladies, held at the Union League Club House, on November 21, 1863. They started to work on the project and elected an Executive Board consisting of twenty-five ladies, who acted in connection with an Advisory Committee of twenty-five gentlemen, appointed by the Sanitary Committee on December 11. A prospectus was made and different committees were appointed to represent, to invite through advertisements and letters, and to collect contributions from trade and business interests in New York. The Twenty Second Regiment Armory, a square building of two hundred feet, was chosen to be the site of the Fair, but because of the great amplitude of the growing Fair, other buildings were put up in front of the Armory, on Fourteenth and Fifteenth Street, in the Union Square and on Broadway Avenue and Fourth Avenue thanks to the Building Committee and the faith and hard work of some Ladies.
The Mayor of the city, Charles Godfrey Gunther, on April 2, in view of the important occasion arisen from the humanitarian labor of love of charity associations, had issued a proclamation recommending that the opening day of the Fair had to be considered as holiday. Major-General John Adams Dix had organized the largest military display of New York, with all the regular troops of the city, under command of General Stannard, and the militia under General Sandford.
Monday, April 4, 1864, the Metropolitan Fair was officially declared open. There were flags everywhere and the streets, starting from twelve o'clock, were filled by half million of gazing people. At three o'clock, one hour late than the original plan, eight thousand men, accompanied by the melodies of bands, started to march from Fourteenth Street, passing down Second Avenue, through Stuyvesant Place and Astor Place, to Broadway. Then the two mile procession stopped at the City Hall and the ceremony went on with two interesting speeches.
In the evening, in the gallery over the entrance of the Fair's building on Fourteenth street, the ceremonies were opened by a choir and a military band that played "Star Spangled Banner" and then the solemn Holmes' "Army Hymn" to express the spirit that carried out Americans during the war and gave a prompt to the organization of the Fair. After that General Dix spoke in behalf of the Gentlemen's Executive Committee and ended his speech by thanking the Ladies with the following words: