Louisa Lee Schuyler (1837-1926) changed the social fabric of New York City and, as modern social historians are beginning to suggest, the nation as well. She was the subject of the 175th Anniversary Lecture, "A Passion for Efficiency: Louisa Lee Schuyler and the World of Nineteenth - Century Reform", delivered by Dr. Lori D. Ginzberg in late October.

Schuyler led a far more active life than might have been expected of the young daughter of a distinguished New York family. She organized the offices of the Woman's Central Association of Relief, the core of the United States Sanitary Commission, which worked in aid of the volunteer soldier throughout the Civil War.

Schuyler also developed and maintained a network of chapters in the Northern States of what was known as The Woman's Central, which did the indispensable work of rolling bandages and gathering materials for the comfort of the soldiers during the conflict.

Exhausted by her Civil War efforts, she retired to Europe for an extended stay, but her career in the organization of benevolence had barely begun. Upon her return to the United States, she undertook a life of public service that endured until she died in 1926.

She founded the Bellevue School of Nursing, the first professional school of nursing in the United States, and the State Charities Aid Association and later organized the National Committee for the Prevention of Blindness. In so doing, Schuyler shifted the concept of assisting those in need from a moral do-good view to one that is professionally administered.

Schuyler received many honors, including a Doctorate of Laws from Columbia University (its second to a woman), but she never sought public leadership. A close associate of Bellows, she maintained her place in old New York society while commanding many of the changes that affected the lives of the less fortunate.

The American Dictionary of Biography quotes the best-known description of this powerful woman: "had she been a man . . . she would have been a captain of industry." As the twentieth century has turned, so has opinion; today she is recognized as having been the early captain of an industry important to our modern national history: the social services and philanthropic world.