“AS SOUND AS A DOLLAR”: FUNDRAISING IN AMERICA AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO THE GREAT WAR IN NURSES’ DIARIES
“AS SOUND AS A DOLLAR”: FUNDRAISING IN AMERICA AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO THE GREAT WAR IN NURSES’ DIARIES

Summary/Abstract: At the beginning of World War I the Scottish Women’s Hospitals organization was founded with the purpose of providing medical aid for the Entente armies. But this organization was not only based in Scotland or the United Kingdom, as it also drew funds and members from the United States and the entire Commonwealth. Dr. Elsie Inglis, credited as the founder of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals, encouraged fundraising in the United States of America, where she sent the charismatic SWH office worker Kathleen Burke. Mrs. Burke would soon become known as the “thousand dollars a day girl”, as her efforts in the United States and Canada brought in about a quarter of all the funds of the SWH (sic!). This allowed for the sending of a new SWH unit to Macedonia, which was called the “America unit” in honor of the charity of those that sponsored it. This article provides an overview of the SWH fundraising efforts in the USA while also presenting the venture of the America unit in the Balkans based on their diaries and secondary literature.

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