The Most Famous Sanitary Commission Doll

       "Perhaps you already know Rose Percy, the charming personage who holds an open house for visitors daily at the Red Cross Museum. If you don't this summer would be an excellent time to meet one of the best known dolls in the United States.
       Rose Percy has a number of distinctions; She is very old though time has altered her little since she was the bell of many a bazaar during Civil Ware times.
       She is widely traveled and a lady of fashion. If she still clings to  mid-Victorian styles it merely shows good taste. Nothing could be more becoming to this plump-cheeked flaxen-haired doll.
       And in her day she has made a great deal of money, without for a moment losing social rank because of her financial enterprises.
       In 1938 Rose Percy was content to stand serenely in a tall glass case in the museum at the American Red Cross national headquarters on Seventeenth street where she was surrounded by jewels, trinkets and beautiful costumes.
       Seventy previous years ago, however, she lived in the midst of great excitement.
       The Civil War had been in progress a year or so when Rose Percy made the acquaintance of a circle of young ladies attending a fashionable school in New York.
       Wishing to raise funds for the care of the sick and wounded on battlefields and in hospitals, these young ladies decided to enlist the aid of the blue-eyed doll.
       A plan was concocted to send Rose Percy to a benefit fair to be held in New York by the Sanitary Commission which in Civil War days, operated much as the Red Cross operates today in war areas.
       For this occasion the doll was to be beautifully dressed and the young ladies set to work with nimble fingers to provide a wardrobe such as few dolls ever possess.
       Soon jewelers, furriers and leading merchants of New York had been persuaded to contribute materials and ornaments. In addition to a complete wardrobe of lingerie as well as dresses and bonnets, Rose Percy was furnished with lovely jewels and ermine furs. Then she was further provided with monogrammed note paper and cooling cards, a dressing case containing brushes, combs and button hooks, an ivory bound photograph album, and for her entertainment, a dainty set of dominoes and a pair of skates.
       When she was ready for the Sanitary Commission Fair, Rose Percy was outfitted with everything imagination could dictate, all in exquisite taste. And it was no surprise at all to her many friends when offered in a raffle at the fair, she earned $1,200 for the care of the sick and wounded soldiers.
       The man who held the lucky ticket which entitled him to Rose Percy and all her fine possessions, presented it to his little daughter, who later became Mrs. Horace Chittenden. In this little girl Rose Percy found a loving foster mother but she was not yet destined for the quiet home life that most dolls lead.
       As the war continued arrangements were made for the doll to go on personal appearance tours to exhibitions and fairs about the country. And wherever she traveled Rose Percy continued to raise money for the benefit of the war wounded.
       When Rose Percy went to Washington to live when Mrs. Chittenden, she was sent to live at the museum there around 1918.
       After that time she became one of the most famous dolls in the country. Thousands asked to see her every year and children never tired of examining her many treasures.
        Life, on the whole, ran smoothly for Rose Percy, but one would scarily expect a doll who has been so active to live the rest of her days uneventfully.
       Rose Percy added to her story in approximately 1936, when she met with an accident.
       In some way the doll was left near a radiator and the heat had a disastrous effect on her beautiful waxen face. When her plight was discovered Rose Percy's features had undergone a tragic change.
       But modern science came to the rescue. Rose Percy was sent away at once to a plastic surgeon and the damage was repaired.
       The experience seemed only to have added strength and character to a face that had delighted so many Americans."  Frances Lide 1938, edited by Grimm

Update: Rose Percy doll further treated for damages in 1966. In November of 2009 she was sold to a private collector at auction.

• The Most Historic of all War Benefit Dolls
• Healing the Wounds of War: The Brooklyn Sanitary Fair of 1864
• "Small But Mighty Host" Benefit and Fund Raising Dolls in The Civil War (pdf.)
• Rose Percy has her own website here
• The American Red Cross Museum in Washington, D.C.
• Read about the detailed contents of Rose Percy wardrobe here...
• Hardcover book by Michael Canada and David Robinson concerning the life of Rose Percy
• The Remarkable Rose Percy - Duty's Most Faithful Child

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