ORIGINS OF LEND A HAND   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 a 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 friend and to help their fellow humans.   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 would pyramid and would encircle the globe.

Dr. Hale, born in Boston, became a Unitarian minister following his graduation from Harvard College in 1839 and a short period of teaching school.  His first church was in Worcester, Massachusetts, where his close friend was Frederick William Greenleaf (1820 – 1850).  It was Greenleaf who inspired the character of “Harry Wadsworth”.  Hale became the minister of the South Congregational Church, Unitarian, in Boston in 1856, a position he held to 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 many of the social issues of the day.  Among these were the Abolition of Slavery, the U.S. Sanitary Commission, the temperance movement, the Industrial Aid Society, the formation of the Associated Charities, and worldwide peace movements.   His best known work as an author, “The Man Without A Country,” appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in December 1863 and has been an inspiring doctrine for patriotism ever since.    Hale did not intend to start a movement when he wrote “Ten Times One is Ten.”  He simply needed a story for a magazine he was publishing.  Following the publication of the story, groups sprang up voluntarily to follow its example, setting as their ideal four mottoes Hale included in the story:                                        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 office, becoming a clearinghouse for letters from individuals responding to Hale’s writing. By 1891 the volume of correspondence and publishing work had grown so large that the Ten Times One Corporation was formed to function as a central headquarters for the individual clubs.  It was incorporated in 1892 and changed its name 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 Society was nonsectarian.  Hale was very active in promoting and encouraging the establishment of clubs which at one time numbered as many as 800.   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 their work, sending books to schools and libraries in the rural South.

Sarah Brigham founded the Book Mission in 1890 and it shortly thereafter became allied with the Lend A Hand Society.  After Ms. Brigham’s death in 1911, her niece, Anna E. Wood, took over the work.  Both Ms. Brigham and Ms. Wood traveled South to learn firsthand about the communities that requested aid.  Their successors continued this practice, including Annie F. Brown, Mary Coburn, and Helen Merritt.   New and used books were sent to schools (usually small and rural), libraries, YMCA’s, prisons, and occasionally to an individual. Books were sent and institutions were aided regardless of the race of their students; 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.  This work continues today.   The Boston Floating Hospital was founded by the Reverend 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 Hale, and the Floating Hospital was a department of the Society from 1896 until 1901, when it became a separate entity.   Beginning at the turn of the century and continuing for a great many years, the 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 Society was on a much smaller scale, though.  It worked predominantly through other relief agencies, providing aid to meet a need that might otherwise go unmet.  Wheelchairs and hospital equipment were loaned to those in need, layettes were given to new mothers, and “gentlewomen” were enabled to earn some money by sewing garments to be distributed primarily to 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 1970’s and early 1980’s this goal continued to be met by sending children to summer camps.  Beginning in the 1930’s and continuing into the 1970’s, small loans were made to college and graduate students to assist them in completing their education.   Today the Society continues to offer financial assistance to qualified, tax exempt, non-profit social service agencies serving the greater Boston community to be used for emergency grants and other relief to named individuals approved by the social service agencies.  Priority is given to agencies that help the poor, the handicapped, children, and the needs of low-income individuals and families.   Funding for camperships is also provided, primarily for inner city youth.