Women’s Clubs

Essay

The woman’s club movement began throughout the United States in the late nineteenth century. Although initially focused on self-improvement, women’s clubs in the Philadelphia region as in the nation quickly extended their goals to include community activism. Drawing upon contemporary assumptions about the inherent differences between men and women, leaders of the club movement argued that women’s spiritual and moral superiority prepared them for a more significant role in reforming society. Moreover, club members often utilized the rhetoric of domesticity to support women’s involvement, claiming their work would be an extension of their domestic role within the household.

A black and white photograph of Eliza Sproat Turner as an elderly woman. She is seated in a chair reading a magazine.
Eliza Sproat Turner was an early leader of women’s clubs in Philadelphia. Her efforts to ensure women were included in the 1876 Centennial Exposition led to the formation of the city’s first women’s club, the New Century Club. (Historical Society of Pennsylvania)

Building on the tradition of charitable work of early nineteenth-century church and benevolence societies, women’s clubs maintained a focus on social welfare, anticipating much of the work later taken up by the Progressive movement of the 1890s. The generation of women who established these clubs often built on the infrastructure established by women in the antebellum era. The nation’s first women’s club, the Sorosis Club of New York, formed in 1868, but in the Philadelphia area, women’s clubs emerged in the aftermath of the 1876 Centennial Exhibition. Eliza Sproat Turner (1826-1903) and Elizabeth Duane Gillespie (1821-1901), president of the Women’s Committee for the Centennial, joined other local women in hosting tea parties to raise money to build the Women’s Pavilion in West Fairmount Park. The Women’s Pavilion highlighted the significance of women’s contributions to society, including their support for the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. In the Pavilion’s newspaper, Turner published a rationale for the formation of women’s clubs, which in turn influenced the development of the women’s club movement throughout the nation. The impact of the Pavilion extended beyond national borders as women continued to reframe the historical narrative to include themselves as full participants whose contributions were not limited to the home.

Building on the energy unleashed with the Women’s Pavilion, Turner joined Sarah Catherine Fraley Hallowell (1833-1914) in 1877 to establish the New Century Club, one of the first women’s clubs in the nation. Initially conceived to promote science, literature, and art, by the turn of the twentieth century the club extended its influence to include social reform, offering programs to address municipal concerns as well as other issues related to women and children.

a black and white photograph of three women dressed in costumes reflecting the fashions of 1877.
Members of the New Century Club donned the popular fashions of 1877, their founding year, in this photograph from the club’s fiftieth anniversary. The New Century Club originated in the Women’s Pavilion of the 1876 Centennial Exposition, where women operated a steam-powered printing press to publish The New Century for Women newsletter. (Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries)

The New Century Guild emerged as a committee of the New Century Club, and in 1882 became an independent organization where Turner sought to expand educational and political activities related to women and their participation in the workforce. In 1893, the Guild became a committee of the newly formed New Century Trust. With the support of financial gifts, the Guild secured ownership of its own property, a house at 1307 Locust Street, which allowed it to offer more vocational training, as well as self-improvement programs. Turner also held one of the first local meetings in support of women’s suffrage meetings at the Guild’s building.

Federations of Women’s Clubs

Women from the New Century Club also helped to organize the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC) in 1890 under the leadership of Jane Cunningham Croly (1829-1901), who is credited with founding the Sorosis Club of New York. Organizations spread throughout the Philadelphia region. A New Jersey Federation of Women’s Clubs formed in 1894; the Woman’s Club of Camden not only led to the founding of Camden’s library system but also increased early childhood education and public playgrounds. In Delaware, where the New Century Club of Wilmington formed in 1889, a State Federation of Women’s Clubs began in 1898.

a notice informing the public that the Civic Club of Philadelphia is raising funds to build an open-air playground for the children of Germantown.
Women’s clubs engaged in a number of social reform campaigns from housing to education. The Civic Club of Philadelphia issued this notice in 1904 to promote the creation of a playground in Germantown. (Historical Society of Pennsylvania)

While the New Century Club remained the most prominent club in Philadelphia, the role and impact of local women’s clubs increased with the establishment of the Acorn Club in 1889 and the Civic Club of Philadelphia in 1894. Excluded from formal participation in electoral contests, women maintained political influence through voluntary organizations, often working in cooperation with men interested in municipal reform. In order to facilitate a greater coalition with men, Civic Club leaders such as Sara Yorke Stevenson (1847-1921) carefully defined their goal as work on behalf of women and children. Members of the Civic Club, organized into four departments for municipal government, education, social service, and art, conducted research and disseminated reports on issues ranging from education to housing. Leadership from the Civic Club and the New Century Guild supported each other by sending letters, delegations, as well as fund-raising to lobby for a wide variety of municipal and statewide reform initiatives, including the environment and conservation. Their investigations often led to legislation, including the Philadelphia Public School Reorganization Act of 1905, which granted authority to the schools superintendent to reform and standardize the city’s public schools, and the Philadelphia Housing Code of 1913, which established a Division of Housing and Sanitation in the Department of Health and Charities to improve standards for home lighting, ventilation, and occupancy.

A black and white photograph of Mary Church Terrell seated in an ornately carved chair
Mary Church Terrell was instrumental in the formation of clubs for African American women. Under her leadership in 1896, over one hundred local clubs united as the National Association of Colored Women in 1896. (Library of Congress)

The membership of most women’s clubs consisted primarily of white, middle class women. In response, African American women began organizing and by 1896 the National Association of Colored Women united more than one hundred local clubs under the leadership of Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954). Founded in 1870, the Colored Women’s Christian Association established what many consider to be the oldest African American YWCA. (Young Women’s Christian Association) in Philadelphia. The Southwest Branch, later known as the Southwest-Belmont Branch of the YWCA, maintained a significant presence in the Philadelphia African American community. Like women’s clubs, the Southwest Branch provided educational and social opportunities. With the financial support of John Wanamaker (1838-1922), the branch operated the Elizabeth Frye House to help African American women find affordable housing. Drawing primarily on the efforts of women from the Pittsburgh area, such as Rebecca Aldridge (1851-1933), the Pennsylvania State Federation of Negro Women’s Clubs was established in 1903. These organizations participated in anti-lynching campaigns and addressed educational and social reform issues.

The state federations of women’s clubs in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware contributed to the growth of the GFWC as the nation’s largest women’s voluntary association. The advocacy of Alice Leakey, club member from Cranford, New Jersey, ultimately led to the passage of the federal Pure Food and Drug Act (1906). Other notable efforts supported by women’s clubs include seatbelt legislation and the expansion of public libraries. Although the Civic Club of Philadelphia formally distributed its assets to other civic organizations in 1959, in the early decades of the twenty-first century the Acorn Club, formed primarily to promote “literary, musical and artistic tastes,” maintained a private membership. In 2012, at its original headquarters site at 1307 Locust Street in Philadelphia, the New Century Trust celebrated nearly 120 years of work improving the educational, economic and social status of women and girls.

a color photograph of a three story white building with a red front entrance door. A sign above the door reads "Delaware Children's Theater."
The New Century Club of Wilmington formed in Delaware in 1889. The clubhouse, shown here in a later incarnation as the Delaware Children’s Theatre, was built by Minerva Parker Nichols, who also designed Philadelphia’s New Century Club headquarters. (Wikimedia Commons)

Women’s clubs continued to increase, with more than eighty thousand members affiliated with the GFWC in the early twenty-first century. The mission statement, which remained centered on a commitment to education and civic involvement, broadened its scope to include supporting the arts, preserving natural resources, promoting healthy lifestyles, and working toward world peace and understanding. To that end, the State Federation of Women’s Clubs in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey continued to support higher education through annual scholarships and grants. With more than fifty clubs in the early decades of the twenty-first century, the Greater Philadelphia region maintained a strong affiliation with the GFWC and presence in the nationwide activism of women’s clubs.

Catherine Murray is a Ph.D. candidate in History at Temple University. (Author information current at time of publication.)

Copyright 2017, Rutgers University

Gallery

Women's Pavilion, 1876 Centennial Exposition

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

The New Century Club originated in the Women’s Pavilion of the 1876 Centennial Exposition. The pavilion was built in response to women being refused independent exhibition space in the Main Exhibition Building. All exhibits showcased in the Women’s Pavilion were the work of women.

One of the most popular attractions was a woman who operated a steam engine that powered several other exhibits, among them a printing press. This press printed copies of the Women’s Centennial Committee’s newsletter, The New Century for Women. In 1877 at the exposition’s conclusion, a group of about forty women formed the New Century Club, a literary society for women. The pavilion, always intended to be a temporary structure, was dismantled shortly after the exposition ended.

Eliza Sproat Turner

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Eliza Sproat Turner was an early leader of women’s clubs in Philadelphia. Turner became involved in reform movements in her early twenties and participated in the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. During the Civil War, she volunteered as a nurse to tend to soldiers wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg. Turner began championing women’s suffrage in the late 1860s. Her efforts to ensure women were included in the 1876 Centennial Exposition led to the formation of the city’s first women’s club. Turner promoted the formation of women’s clubs in the newsletter for the Centennial’s Women’s Pavilion and joined with Sarah Catherine Fraley Hallowell to establish the New Century Club after the exposition closed in 1877. In 1882, the New Century Guild for Working Women was formed to provide educational and vocational training for women.

New Century Club of Wilmington

Wikimedia Commons

The New Century Club of Wilmington formed in Delaware in 1889. The clubhouse, shown here in a later incarnation as the Delaware Children’s Theatre, was built by Minerva Parker Nichols, who also designed Philadelphia’s New Century Club headquarters. The club served as a model for other local women’s associations such as the New Century Club of Newark (Delaware).

New Century Club Clubhouse

Library of Congress

The New Century Club was formed in 1877 and within a decade was large enough to require its own clubhouse. To design the building, the club chose female architect Minerva Parker Nichols, who also designed a clubhouse for the Wilmington New Century Club. The New Century Club clubhouse was completed on Twelfth Street in 1892 and stood until it was razed in 1973 for construction of a parking garage.

New Century Club

Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries

Members of the New Century Club donned the popular fashions of 1877, their founding year, in this photograph from the club’s fiftieth anniversary. The New Century Club originated in the Women’s Pavilion of the 1876 Centennial Exposition, where women operated a steam-powered printing press to publish The New Century for Women newsletter.

Civic Club of Philadelphia Playground Notice

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Women’s clubs were involved in a number of social reform campaigns from housing to education. This 1904 notice was issued by the Civic Club of Philadelphia to promote the creation of a playground in Germantown.

Jane Cunningham Croly

Digital Collections, New York Public Library

Jane Cunningham Croly is credited with founded the first women’s club in the United States, the New York’s Sorosis Club, in 1868. In 1890, she helped women from the New Century Club and other organizations form the General Federation of Women’s Clubs.

Mary Church Terrell

Library of Congress

Mary Church Terrell was instrumental in the formation of clubs for African American women. Under her leadership in 1896, over one hundred local clubs united as the National Association of Colored Women.

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Related Reading

Bowen, Louise de Koven. Growing Up with a City. New York: Macmillan Co., 1926.

Croly, Jane Cunningham. The History of the Woman’s Club Movement in America. New York: Henry G. Allen, 1898.

Davis, Lindsay. Lifting as They Climb: A History of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs. New York, 1996.

Gustafson, Melanie S. “’Good City Government Is Good House-keeping’: Women and Municipal Reform.” Pennsylvania Legacies 11, no. 2 (2011): 12-17.

Howe, Julia Ward. Reminiscences, 1819-1899. New York: Houghton-Mifflin and Co., 1899.

Shaw, Stephanie J. “Black Club Women and the Creation of the National Association of Colored Women,” Journal of Women’s History 3, (Summer 1991), 10-25.

Wells, Mildred White. Unity in Diversity: The History of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. Washington D.C.: General Federation of Women’s Clubs, 1953.

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