Women's Clubs - Social Phenomenon of the early 20th Century

After I finished writing about the Spanish Influenza in the Upper Valley, I didn't know what to write about next, but I knew I wanted to start in 1918, and see where that led. A friend gave me some newspapers from 1918, and there were some Manchester Unions in the pile she gave me. I started looking for articles about Lebanon, and I came across a small article, just a couple of lines, more of an announcement, that said that the Vega club of Lebanon had been accepted into the New Hampshire Federation of Women's Clubs. I didn't find this particularly interesting, but in the name of fairness, I researched it anyway. Come to find out, women's clubs were crazy popular at the end of the 19^th and beginning of the 20^th centuries.

Women received the same high quality grammar school and high school education as boys did, but a college education was almost entirely only for men. Oberlin College in Ohio was the first college to admit both black and female students. In 1837, Oberlin admitted four women students, and in a few years, the Oberlin student body was one third female. Mount Holyoke, which at first was a women's seminary, was founded in 1836 and became a college in 1896. In 1861, Vassar became the first women's college to have a curriculum equal to that of a men's college. Although these groundbreaking institutions provided an opportunity for a few very well prepared and fortunate women to receive an education after high school, most girls graduated from high school with no opportunity to engage in intellectual pursuits. Women's clubs provided a way for women to get together and participate in literary and cultural activities. Women who did go to college often found themselves with a degree, but without a way to use either their degree, or the knowledge they gained at college. These women, too, joined women's clubs as a way to access further education and intellectual pursuit.

During the early Gilded Age after the Civil War, women's clubs were almost exclusively literary discussion groups. Like book groups today, everyone in the club read the same book or articles, and then discussed them. The clubs met at different women's houses, and the woman who was hosting the meeting was in charge of refreshments, discussion questions and was the discussion leader for that meeting. Sometimes the clubs had guest speakers. Some women's clubs became national organizations. The Fortnightly women's club had chapters in states across the country. There are still Fortnightly literary clubs that are active in 2016.

By 1900, there were a few more opportunities for women in the community and in education, and women's clubs began to change their focus from literary discussion to social and political problems and charity work. Some clubs continued the literary discussion and added a political or charity component. As the Gilded Age gave way to the Progressive Era, political and social issues became more important, and this change was reflected in the focus of womens' groups.

The New Hampshire Federation of Womens Clubs was founded in 1895, and published a magazine called “The Club Woman”. Volume 10, published in 1902, contained reports from the conference held in Dover that year. Most of the discussion at the conference centered around social problems rather than literary pursuits. The women there supported a “Dependent Children's Bill” in New Hampshire Legislature, which would forbid the detention of children in almshouses. They supported the creation of a state board of charities. Another project they undertook that year was the sponsoring of an Old Home Week on the state level. They recommended that the state of New Hampshire appoint a state forester to help mitigate the depletion of forests. They also supported the establishment of a school or home for feeble-minded children, and also voiced concern for the “dependent insane”. Another issue they were concerned about was abandoned farms, and whether they could be rehabilitated for the use of people who were homeless. This seems like a very ambitious political agenda, in light of the fact that women would not be able to vote for another eighteen years. The keynote speaker was the president of Dartmouth College, another ironic twist, since Dartmouth didn't allow women students for another 75 years.

A couple of Upper Valley clubs were mentioned in the magazine. West Lebanon had a Fortnightly, and one of the members, Clara Stearns, composed a song that was performed at the conference. The Vega club was presented as a “new club”, which seems odd because it wasn't admitted as a member of the federation until 1918. Maybe clubs could attend the conference even though they were not members.