This week’s thread will discuss the Women’s Club movement and it’s most influential members.
The woman’s club movement was a social movement that took place throughout the United States that established the idea that women had a moral duty and responsibility to transform public policy. While women’s organizations had always been a part of United States history, it was not until the Progressive era that it came to be considered a “movement.” The first wave of the club movement during the Progressive era was started by white, middle-class, Protestant women and a second phase by African-American women.
These clubs, most of which had started out as social and literary gatherings, eventually became a source of reform for various issues in the U.S. Both African-American and white women’s clubs were involved with issues surrounding education, temperance, child labor, juvenile justice, legal reform, environmental protection, library creation and more. Women’s clubs helped start many initiatives such as kindergartens and juvenile court systems. Later, women’s clubs tackled issues like women’s suffrage, lynching and family planning. The clubs allowed women, who had little political standing at the time, to gain greater influence in their communities. As women gained more rights, the need for clubs to exercise political and social influence became less important. Over time, participation in women’s clubs has waned in the United States. However, many clubs still continue to operate and influence their communities.
The woman’s club movement became part of Progressive-era social reform, which was reflected by many of the reforms and issues addressed by club members. Many women’s clubs focused on the welfare of their community because of their shared experiences intending to the well-being of home-life, according to Maureen A. Flanagan. Tending to the community was often called “municipal housekeeping” during the Progressive era and reflected a shared belief by many club members that home and city life were linked through city hall. By constructing the idea of municipal housekeeping, women were also able to justify their involvement in government. Later, in 1921, Alice Ames Winter describes how women had begun to see “their homes as the units out of which society was built”, and that home life and public life were linked. Women’s clubs “established the idea that women had a moral duty and responsibility to transform, define and shape public policy”. Women’s clubs were also “training schools” for women who wanted to get involved in the public sphere. They helped women attain both social and political power.
Many women’s clubs increased their memberships by having other members sponsor or nominate new members to the group. Clubs often organized themselves by committee or division. Many women’s clubs created and occupied their own clubhouses. Today these clubhouses have continued to be the site of women’s meetings and other gatherings. Some women’s clubs created and continue to publish their own journals and newsletters.
Prior to the founding of the first Progressive era women’s clubs, Sorosis and the New England Women’s Club, most organizations for women were auxiliaries of groups for men or were church-related. Jane Cunningham Croly of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC) wrote in 1898 that women were first able to reach out of their homes through religious institutions.
By becoming involved in church or charitable groups, women were able to find companionship and a way to facilitate change in their communities. It was also one of the few ways that women were initially allowed to contribute outside of the home. Some of the earliest women-led organizations were started as religious groups in the early part of the nineteenth century. White women were involved in church charity groups as early as the 1790s.
Later, women also started to become involved in antislavery groups, temperance groups, and women’s suffrage organizations starting in the 1840s. African-American women helped organize many anti-slavery groups, the earliest founded in 1832, and white women followed black women’s lead in creating abolition groups.
As women began to have more leisure time, they started woman’s clubs. Initially, most women’s clubs focused on literary endeavors, self-improvement and created social opportunities for white middle-class women. These clubs allowed women to share ideas and helped them realize that their thoughts were important and that together they could act on them. Literary women’s clubs in pioneer areas gave women an outlet to explore reading and make friends. Many women’s clubs maintained book collections for use by club members. Instead of forming a literary club, women in Galveston created a scientific club, which also focused on learning.
Croly notes that women’s clubs were not created to copy men’s groups; instead, they were often created to give women a space to share ideas as equals; these ideas often developed into practical action. As Mary I. Wood and Percy V. Pennybacker described it: “Very early the club women became unwilling to discuss Dante and Browning over the teacups, at meetings of their peers in some lady’s drawing-room, while unsightly heaps of rubbish flanked the paths over which they had passed in their journeys thither.” Women justified their movement into social reform by using the Victorian idea that women were naturally morally superior to men. As clubs moved from self-improvement to community improvement, women’s clubs in the Western U.S. lagged somewhat behind clubs formed in more developed parts of the country. Woman’s clubs in the late 1800s described themselves as attempting to “exert a refining and ennobling influence” on their communities. They also saw woman’s clubs as an intellectual and practical good which would create better women and a better country.
Sorosis and the GFWC saw large increases in membership in 1889 and 1890. The GFWC grew to around a million women by 1910, and to a million and a half by 1914. The creation of an umbrella organization for the many women’s clubs allowed them to work together in a more coordinated fashion. However, the GFWC excluded African-American clubs from their membership, and many white clubs during the late 1800s excluded black women as well as Jewish women from membership. White women’s clubs ignored racial inequalities because of the controversy surrounding the issue, and if they did address racial inequalities, they did so “tactfully in order to gain members and support”. Some white women’s clubs were frankly unconcerned with issues relating to African Americans because they “supported the racist ideology and practices of their era”.
Women’s clubs were very active in women’s suffrage (see below) and helped support the war effort during World War I. Women in clubs raised money, worked with the Red Cross, financed the Home Guard and set up communications within the community to share information quickly. Woman’s clubs also knitted socks, rolled bandages for soldiers and sold war bonds. In Texas, the Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs (TFWC) helped create recreational canteens for soldiers. During the 1930s, women’s clubs hosted programs in concert with the Works Progress Administration. When World War II broke out, women’s clubs were involved in volunteering. In the 1960s, during the civil rights movement, women’s clubs again grew in size.
While there were many organizations that encouraged change around child labor, the GFWC became advocates for some of the first child labor laws. Children were hired because they were cheaper and more manageable than adults. During the early 1900s, women’s labor organizations were formed to protect their rights. Among them, was Lenora O’Reilly who helped develop the WTUL that supported wage requests and promoted the end of child labor.