Historical Sketch

The Lend a Hand Society, a private charity in Boston, grew out of the response to a short story called "Ten Times One Is Ten," written in 1870 by Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909). The story tells of ten people who meet at the funeral of a mutual friend named Harry Wadsworth and discover that he had helped each one of them. They resolve to follow the example of their late friend and to help their fellow man. If each person they aided would in turn lend someone else a hand (10 x 1 = 10, 10 x 10 = 100, etc), the spirit of helpfulness could circle the globe.

Hale, born in Boston, became a Unitarian minister following his graduation from Harvard in 1839. His first church was in Worcester, Massachusetts, where his closest friend was Frederic William Greenleaf (1820-1850). It was Greenleaf who inspired the character of Harry Wadsworth in "Ten Times One Is Ten." Edward Everett Hale became the minister of the South Congregational Church in Boston in 1856, a position he held until the end of his life.

Believing that his calling as a minister compelled him to work outside the church as well as in the pulpit, Hale became involved in the social issues of the day. Active in the movement to bring Kansas into the Union as a free state, one of his first published books was Kanzas and Nebraska (1854) [sic]. He was also active in charitable and reform efforts closer to home, including the temperance movement, the Industrial Aid Society, and the formation of the Associated Charities. His best known work as an author, "The Man Without a Country," appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in December 1863.

Hale did not intend to start a movement when he wrote "Ten Times One Is Ten." He simply needed a story to put in Old and New, the magazine he edited, and wrote the story of Harry Wadsworth that he had been mulling over for years. Following the publication of the story, groups sprang up to follow its example, setting as their ideal (and taking their name from) this verse of Hale's:

Look up and not down
Look forward and not back
Look out and not in
Lend a hand

At first Hale's publishing office served as the Lend a Hand Society headquarters, becoming a clearinghouse for letters from individuals responding to Edward Everett Hale's writings. By 1891, the volume of correspondence and publishing work had grown so large that the Ten Times One Corporation was formed in that year to function as a central headquarters for the individual clubs. The name was changed to the Lend a Hand Society in 1898. Hale became the first president, serving until his death in 1909. Although Hale was a Unitarian minister, the Lend a Hand Society was nonsectarian. In addition to Ten Times One Clubs, other names chosen by clubs included Harry Wadsworth Clubs, Look-Up Legions, and King's Daughters. This last group, formed in New York City in 1886, was more evangelical in nature than the others and did not align itself with the less strictly religious groups that formed the majority of clubs. Hale was very active in promoting and encouraging the establishment of clubs.

As described by the Rev. Christopher Eliot, Hale's successor as the president of Lend a Hand, "The purpose was to hold the clubs together, at the same time leaving them absolutely independent, and to encourage the formation of new clubs: also to undertake such Lend a Hand work as might be possible from a central office by cooperation..."

The work undertaken by Lend a Hand varied in scope from operating the Noon-Day Rest, a lunchroom for working women that existed in Boston from 1893-1899, to what later became the most sizeable segment of the Lend a Hand Society's work, sending books to schools and libraries in the rural South. A few aspects of the Lend a Hand Society's work are described below.

Sarah Brigham founded the Book Mission in 1890, and it shortly thereafter became allied with the Lend a Hand Society. After Miss Brigham's death in 1911, her niece Anna E. Wood took over the work. From its founding until 1914, the Book Mission was closely connected with the Lend a Hand Society but was not administered through the central office. After that date, it was a fully integrated department of the Lend a Hand Society and rapidly became the largest single part of the Lend a Hand Society's work.

Both Miss Brigham and Miss Wood traveled South to learn firsthand about the communities that requested aid. Their IRS successors continued this practice, including Annie F. Brown who made the trip in 1915, 1917, 1921, 1924 and 1928. Mary Coburn traveled to the South in 1935 and 1941, and Helen Merritt in 1951.

New and used books were sent to schools (usually small and rural), libraries, YMCAs, prisons, and to an occasional individual. Both black and white institutions were aided, and books were occasionally sent outside the South. Later on in the Book Mission's existence, money to purchase books was sent, rather than the books themselves. Institutions were often helped on a continuing basis.

The Boston Floating Hospital was founded by the Rev. Rufus Tobey in 1894 to relieve the suffering of sick children in the hot city by providing them with fresh sea air and to treat the summer diseases of children. Tobey was aided in this work by Edward Everett Hale, and the Floating Hospital was a department of the Lend a Hand Society from 1896-1901. After that time, it became a separate entity.

Beginning at the turn of the century and continuing for many years, the Lend a Hand Society contributed to the medical missionary work of Dr. Wilfred Grenfell and the Grenfell Association in Labrador and Newfoundland.

Most of the work done by the Lend a Hand Society was on a much smaller scale, though. The Lend a Hand Society worked predominately through other relief agencies, providing aid to meet a need that might otherwise be unmet. Wheelchairs and hospital equipment were loaned to those in need, layettes were given (through the local clubs as well as Boston City Hospital, among other agencies) to new mothers, and "gentlewomen" were enabled to earn some money by sewing garments to be distributed primarily by hospitals and the Red Cross. Vacations and convalescent care were provided for men, women, and children who needed to get away from their daily cares. In the 1970s and early 1980s, this goal continued to be met by sending children to summer camp. Beginning in the 1930s and continuing into the 1970s, small loans were made to college and graduate students to assist them in completing their education.

Publications associated with Hale or the Lend a Hand Society were Old and New (1870-1875), Ten Times One Is Ten Circulars (1882-1875), Lend a Hand: A Record Of Progress (1886-1897), The Look-Out (1888-1891), The Ten Times One Record (1893-1898), Lend a Hand Record (begun 1898), and Lend a Hand Leaflet (begun 1910). Note that some Lend a Hand publications in fact pre-date the official date of incorporation.

The Lend a Hand Society is still in existence today.