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Women's Clubs can easily be traced back to the 1850's. These clubs aimed
to cultivate middle class women in new ideas acquired through study and
culture. Such clubs are more readily associated with the fraternalism
clubs of the time than to the later service clubs. Organizations such as
the Masons, Elks and Moose remained male only, but the members often
invited their wives, “the little woman,” to join them at sociable
events.
 Interestingly,
these clubs seemed to reinforce the stereotypical images of men and
women, yet the women’s club movement prospered. Often, the idea was to
simply replicate organizations such as the
freemasonry movement, with
its secret rituals. Yet, by the 1880's there were over 900 such groups
around the USA.
However, many of these women's clubs actually formed themselves into a
General Federation of Women's Clubs and held conventions. In 1889,
President Charlotte E Brown's vision was for a club that "fits women for
useful service in all the broadening avocations that are opening before
them." There were calls for women to address the problems of the age and
work for the improvement of the social, civic and educational
institutions.
 These
women had a broad aim of self-culture and placed great emphasis on
setting up local libraries, petitioning on industrial reform and
campaigning for city beautification projects.
The
women were very successful in their social aims. Companionship aimed at
self-improvement flourished. The National American Woman Suffrage
Association (NAWSA), under the leadership of Carrie Chapman Catt, who
was president from 1900 to 1904, began successful efforts to recruit
large members of socially prominent and politically influential women
(the "society plan") and to convince the growing numbers of middle and
upper-class women involved in women's clubs that woman suffrage would be
a boon to their civic improvement efforts.
They
also reached out to the new generation of college-educated women, many
of them professionals, reminding them that their opportunities were owed
to the pioneers of the woman's movement, and challenging them to take up
the torch.
The
Chicago Women's Club was an example of a prominent and exclusive club
and dedicated to the movement's motto of "Unity in Diversity". The
Chicago Club was credited with influencing the improvements in the city
jails in 1906. Political campaigning was not taboo, it was a time
in America that women made major contributions to reform, politics,
child labor laws
and national life during a time that came to be called the Progressive
Era.
But, the Chicago
Women's Club was an exception. Most women’s clubs had their birth and
growth from with the home, from the sitting rooms and parlors of
middle-class women.
Most of these early women's clubs were charitable, social, or literary
groups. And, even the smaller clubs in the smaller communities soon
became involved in programs for community improvement, which led them
into reform.
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There
are interesting comparisons with Rotary. One President of the
Federation, Ellen Henrotin described the movement as one not "allied to
any church or any creed or any nation, but underlying them all." She
went on: "We must live an applied Christianity. No greater service can
be rendered the world."
By the
1920's, the Women's clubs began declining as the men had taken up the
challenges laid down by women in the form of Rotary and similar service
clubs. Rotary’s role had changed from ‘boosting’ to ‘service.’ Yet, with
a kind of selective blindness, the men never acknowledged the role women
played in 'service'.
Some
important women’s milestones that occurred
during this period:
1866 - The Young Women's
Christian Assoc. (YWCA) founded in Boston, MA
1869 - Wyoming Territory
grants women the vote in all elections, the first.
1889 - Jane Addams and
Ellen Starr found Hull House in Chicago, IL
1890 -
General
Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC) - the world's oldest nonpartisan,
nondenominational women's volunteer service organization - was founded
in New York City by newspaperwoman Jane Cunningham Croly
1903 - Women's Trade
Union League founded to support working women
1912 - Police close down
Margaret Sanger's birth-control clinic
1912 - Hadassah
organized
1916 - Jeannette Rankin
(Montana) became the first woman elected to Congress
1917 - National Woman's
Party begins picketing White House for suffrage on July 14
1920 - 19th Amendment
(Woman Suffrage) ratified, August 26
1920 - League of Women
Voters founded
1920 - Women's Bureau of
Dept. of Labor formed
Calum Thomson
and Doug Rudman. Sources include:
The Women's History
and Resource Center, founded by the General Federation of Women's Clubs
in 1984;
George, Carol V. R., "Remember the Ladies”; Charles, Jeffrey A.,
“Service Clubs in American Society”; Harris, Barbara J., “Beyond Her
Sphere: Women and the Professions in American History”; and Hartman,
Mary S. and Lois W. Banner, “Clio's Consciousness Raised: New
Perspectives on the History of Women.”
Photo Upper Left: The executive committee of the
Sorosis club of New York City appeared in an 1893 issue of Worthington's
Magazine. Having sponsored the organization meetings of GFWC in 1889 and
1890, the Sorosis club was experiencing a particularly successful period
of community and civic action.
Photo Lower Left: General Federation of Women's clubs
convention in New York
This article comes from the 'Manual of
Procedure' for Rotarians - this was a supplement to the Proceedings
agreed at the Atlantic City Convention 1920 and written for all members
- it included a brief History; a section on use of the Rotary
emblem and name; Rotary's relationship to other organizations. The
article on women appears under the general heading of 'Membership in
Rotary' |
