- New England Women's Club
-
The New England Women's Club (est.1868) of Boston, Massachusetts, was the "first woman's club" in the United States.[1] Members of the club in its early years included Ednah Dow Littlehale Cheney, Julia Ward Howe, Mary Livermore, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Peabody, Lucretia Peabody, Caroline M. Severance,[2][3] and Lucy Stone.[4][5][6]
Contents
History
Portrait of E.D. Cheney, one of the club's founders
In 1868 "club rooms were first secured in ... the rear of the popular Tremont House. On May 30, 1868, the first meeting to introduce the New England Woman's Club to the public was held in Chickering Hall. At this meeting such able friends and advisers as Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Freeman Clarke, Jacob Manning, John Weiss, O.B. Frothingham, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Bronson Alcott, Julia W. Howe and Mrs. E.D. Cheney were the speakers."[7] In its first year, club members set about organizing a horticultural school.[8]
Portrait of Caroline Severance, early member of the clubAround the 1870s in Boston there existed a few other clubs "patronized by ladies, viz: ... the Saturday Morning Club, the Brains Club and the Young Ladies Club, the members of which are in general high-toned persons, interested in intellectual and philanthropic matters -- no cigars, no champagne and no 'draw,' except in the tea-pot."[9]
The club incorporated in 1887; Sarah H. Bradford, Ednah D. Cheney, Lucy Goddard, Abby W. May, L.M. Peabody, Harriet M. Pittman, H.W. Sewall, and Kate Gannett Wells served as signatories. "The object of this association shall be to provide a suitable place of meeting in Boston for the convenience of its members, and to promote social enjoyment and general improvement." Committees oversaw club activities with regards to "Art and Literature;" "Discussions;" "Education;" and "Work." "Monday Teas" were held every week.[10] "The new association was officered and controlled by women, although during the first quarter century there were a very few men enrolled -- names like the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson."[11] By 1893 some 340 members belonged to the club.[12]
Lectures occurred frequently, given by both club members and invited speakers. Among the many lecturers in the club's first decades were:[13] Louis Agassiz, Amos Bronson Alcott, George Thorndike Angell, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Ralph Waldo Emerson, Annie Adams Fields, James T. Fields, William Lloyd Garrison, Edward Everett Hale, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Henry James, and Mary Tyler Peabody Mann.
Around 1903 the club moved its headquarters from Park Street to the newly constructed "New Century Building" on Huntington Avenue, designed by architect Josephine Wright Chapman.[14]
References
New Century Building, Huntington Ave., Boston; club headquarters, ca.1903- ^ Ella Giles Ruddy, ed. The mother of clubs: Caroline M. Seymour Severance: an estimate and an appreciation. Baumgardt Pub. Co., 1906
- ^ Mother of Women's Clubs Dead. New York Times, November 11, 1914.
- ^ Mother of clubs. 1906
- ^ Helen M. Winslow. The story of the woman's club movement. New England Magazine, July 1908.
- ^ Sprague. 1894
- ^ Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago); Date: 04-20-1889
- ^ Mother of clubs. 1908; p.24
- ^ New England Woman's Club Anniversary. New York Herald; Date: 05-30-1869
- ^ Georgia Weekly Telegraph; Date: 02-09-1875
- ^ New England Womens Club. Act of Incoporation. 1887.
- ^ Winslow. 1908
- ^ Sprague. 1894
- ^ Sprague. 1894
- ^ Helen M. Winslow. The Boston Women's Club House. Delineator, 1903.
Further reading
- C.P. Cranch. Ode; read at the festival celebrating the birthday of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, held by the New England Women's club, Boston, May 23, 1870. Atlantic Monthly, Aug. 1870.
- Julia A. Sprague. History of the New England Women's Club from 1868 to 1893. Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1894.
- J.C. Croly. "New England Woman's Club." The history of the woman's club movement in America. NY: H. G. Allen & Co., 1898; p.35+ Published under the authority of the General Federation of Women's Clubs
- Ednah Dow Cheney, 1824-1904: memorial meeting, New England Women's Club, Boston, February 20, 1905. Boston: Geo. H. Ellis Co., printers, 1905.
External links
- Google news archive. Articles about the club
- http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch00102
- Boston Athenaeum. Dickens party at the New England Woman’s Club, 1905; photo by Elmer Chickering. "Group portrait taken at a party at which club members dressed in costume as characters from the novels of Charles Dickens. Handwritten key on verso identifies three of the members as Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, the hostess, who founded the club in 1868; Mrs. Daniel Lothrop dressed as Betsey Trotwood; and Mrs. Leo Hunter."
Categories:- Organizations based in Boston, Massachusetts
- 1868 establishments
- History of Boston, Massachusetts
- 19th century in Boston, Massachusetts
- Women's clubs in the United States
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
