Women and Rotary
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Early Rotary Issues Regarding Women and Rotary
       

Duluth Women's Rotary Club in 1911

Women's Auxiliaries

Women in 1912?

Early, 1984, video on Women and Rotary

       
Had the Belfast club, in July of 1912, voted to admit women, this entire area of Rotary Global History might not have been necessary. 

1921 Edinburgh Convention Legislation regarding "Women's Organizations."  see note below

Inner Wheel, a club for
Women.

Paul Harris, writing about Rotary's growth, had this to say about women's issues in "This Rotarian Age" 1935

       
An early woman in Rotary, in 1938

Also membership for women was found "impossible" at the 1922 convention

Seattle Video on the history of Women and Rotary

 

       

Women's Auxiliaries

See story below, left

Early Women's Clubs

Women and Rotary Timeline

Retirement Recognition for Two RI "Girls"

The late Dorothy Dochterman leads a 1982 discussion with leading Rotary Women

 

Women’s Auxiliaries

 

At Rotary’s first convention and, again in 1912, official sanction was given to establish “Women’s Auxiliaries”. However, there was little progress and in 1918 the Board of Directors decided that it would not recognise Auxiliary Groups.

In, Chicago nothing happened until May 24th 1921 when 59 Rotarians wives met for lunch at the Sherman Hotel and created a new organization called the “Women of Rotary”. (Neither the men or women of Chicago favoured the RotaryAnn nomenclature.) Mrs Alwilda F Harvey, wife of Club #1’s President was leader of this new organization. She went on to say: “Women through the ages have always practiced ‘Service Above Self’ now we have the opportunity to put the slogan into practice in serving our community”. The new movement was chartered in Illinois state as a non-profit corporation on May 22nd 1923.

Rotary International’s Board of Directors however refused to move from their 1918 position and objected, in addition, to the word ‘Rotary’ being used by the Chicago ladies. The name was soon expanded to its logical conclusion - “The Women of the Rotary Club of Chicago”.

The Chicago Rotary Club allowed Mrs Harvey to contribute for 'The Gyrator' by describing her organizations work. The ladies had organized a dinner dance in February 1922. This drew the largest attendance of any Rotary social event at that time.

As time went on, the ladies were successful in their own right in contributing to Service within their community. For example, the ‘club’ started a fund for the blind which would eventually become known as the Women of Rotary Blind Foundation worth many thousands of dollars.

The success of the Chicago Ladies is best summed up by noting a comment of one Chicago Rotarian and husband. “We’ve got to get up and ... promote... ourselves or by 1970 our club will be known as the Men’s Auxiliary”.  Calum Thomson

 

From RC of Chicago's "The Golden Strand" Arnold 1966

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