Sanitary Ball, 1864

Lithograph of stage of former Brooklyn Academy of Music building on Montague Street (destroyed by fire in 1903), where the Women's Relief Association held a sanitary fair in 1864 to benefit the Union war effort; lithograph shows spectators seated in foreground looking towards bow-shaped stage; bunting hanging from ceiling. Caption on verso on copy 1: "Sanitary Ball, 1864: An interior view of the Academy of Music as seen from the dress circle. On the great stage is a pageant of medical care on the battlefields of the Civil War, part of the spectacle staged by the women of Brooklyn to raise money for medical care for the men who fought to save the Union."