Hello- I usually inhabit the CW Navy site but decided to shuffle over here with a gender-specific question. What does anyone reading this have on the South's use of Ladies Associations as generators of finances for warship production? The efforts of the Ladies of South Carolina subsidised the construction of three ironclad gunboats that protected Charleston Harbor; I understand that several of these associations existed across the South. Given that the cost of one of the Richmond Class gunboats was around $178,000 a lot of cakes must have been baked and quilts sewn to offset costs. Any input appreciated.