Fairchild--Women's Club Speeches and Notes, undated (Lucius Fairchild Papers, 1819-1943; Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, Box 88, Folder 7)

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CLUB DEPARTMENT. All communications for this Department should be addressed to the Editor Club Department. Women's Clubs.

The word Club is supposed to be derived either from the Welsh clapiaw, to form into a lump, or to adhere together for a common end; the Saxon cleofan, to cleave, or the more modern German kleben, to adhere, so as to form one body or mass. In its usual English signification it means a body of persons meeting for social or recreative purposes, and consisting of members belonging for the most part to some one class or occupation.

The Club is very ancient and was known among the Greeks, each member contributing his share of the expense, just as in the modern club. It is said that the Greeks even had "benefit clubs," with a common chest, and monthly payments for members in distress.

The Anglo Saxons also had such confederations, called guilds, from gyldan, to pay, to contribute a share. Next we hear of religious guilds, which were succeeded by trade guilds, and benevolent guilds, which were a sort of sick and burial club, some of which survive.

In the reign of Henry IV., of England, we first hear of a species of social or convivial club, called the "Court of the Good Company," to which Chaucer is supposed to have belonged.

In the reign of Elizabeth, clubs began to flourish. We hear of the "Mermaid Tavern" enlivened by the wit and wisdom of Shakspere, Raleigh, Ben Johnson, Beaumont and Fletcher, becoming a sort of club.

From this time down clubs multiplied, usually meeting in taverns. They were formed for every conceivable object; they were literary, political, social. Men of fashion, soldiers, sailors, actors, artists, writers, philosophers, card players, anglers, antiquarians, all had their clubs.

These of course were all men's clubs. It was not until the latter half of the Eighteenth Century that women took any part in club life. In 1770 we first hear of a club which was "composed of both lords and ladies," and which met as usual in a tavern, but to "satisfy the scruples of one of the members, Lady Pembroke," moved to a room in Almack's. In this club the ladies nominated and elected the gentlemen and vice-versa; so that no lady could exclude a lady, and no gentleman a gentleman. At this club, also, gambling, then at its height in England was indulged in to a frightful extent.

About 1749 a "Beefsteak Club," modelled after its celebrated London namesake, was established in Dublin, at the Theatre Royal, the manager paying all the expenses. Though women were not admitted as members of this club, yet an exception was made in favor of "Mistress Peg Woffington, who," the accounts say, "was seated in a great chair at the head of a table, and elected president.

Women's Clubs. 45 And Victor, who wrote a "History of the Theatres," describes her as "a lovely president, full of wit and spirit."

In 1781 the famous "Blue Stocking Club" was formed in which women took equal part with men. It met at the house of Mrs. Montague. The last of the club was Miss Moncton, who became Countess of Cork, and who died in 1840, when she was over ninety years of age.

The first clubs composed exclusively of women were those famous ones formed during the French Revolution, and which, like all the other clubs in France, were political.

Lamartine, in his "History of the Girondists," thus describes their establishment: "The women of the people, ashamed of being excluded from the men's clubs, founded clubs of their own." One of these is described as a "Social Club" which met in a hall adjacent to that of the Girondists. This club was composed of educated women, and an account of the subjects which came up before them for consideration does not differ very materially from that of the most advanced women's clubs of to-day. "These women," writes Lamartine, "discussed such questions as marriage, the education of children, the institutions of relief, and the assistance of humanity." They were the "philosophers of their sex."

The other clubs, however, consisted of women of much lower character, mental and moral. The members of one of them, in especial, became so turbulent, so "capricious in their eloquence and so audacious in their petitions to the Convention that measures were taken to suppress them all." The club insisted on entering the Assembly. Chaumette, one of the members of the Convention, addressed them in a speech which, even after a hundred years, has a very familiar ring in it, to the ears of modern women. "How long," he exclaimed, "shall these women be allowed to abjure their sex, abandon their household duties, and the cradles of their children to come into public places, the tribune of orators, the bar of the Senate, the ranks of our armies, usurping those rights which nature has reserved for men? To whom then has nature assigned domestic duties? Has she softened our muscles, to render us fit for the occupations of the household? No; she has said to man, be man! To woman, be woman, and the divinity of the sanctuary of home! Imprudent women, who seek to become men, have you not already all that you should have? Women are not anything," he concluded, "but when men are nothing. Look at Jeanne d'Arc, who was great only because Charles VII. was less than a man!"

After this address the Club retired, apparently convinced, but only for a time. It soon became as active as ever. Finally, Robespierre took sufficient time from his usual occupation of sending his fellow-citizens to the guillotine, to have Aumar denounce it to the Convention as "an assemblage of 6000 women, members of a pretended revolutionary society;" and to define the proper relative positions of women and men, by declaring that "nature by her difference of strength had assigned to women other duties, and that modesty, which forbids publicity, lays down as law that they shall

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remain in the bosoms of their families." The Convention adopted these principles and the women's clubs were definitely suppressed.

History repeats itself , however, and though the women's clubs of the French Revolution were never revived, yet in our own day have we seen women forming themselves into clubs and discussing such wide-reaching subjects as the "institutions of relief" and the "assistance of humanity," and perhaps the pioneers among our modern women's clubs may have been occasionally advised as were their French sisters "that a woman's place is in the bosom of her family."

In England, as late as 1840, such a thing as a woman's club was not considered a possibility, and one of the most successful farces on the stage at that period was a burlesque by Mark Lemon called "The Ladies' Club."

About the year 1857 or 1858, a small club of women calling itself the Alpha met in Williamsburg, N. Y. This club was not continued after 1858, but some of the members after its dissolution, formed themselves into a new club for "developing specially the social and domestic graces," while also paying attention to intellectual culture." This was called the Hearthstone, and published a small weekly paper.

These early beginnings which are now almost forgotten, were not without fruit. The idea of a women's club, though it lay dormant for a while was in time to spring into active and vigorous life.

In February, 1868, a "few thoughtful women of Boston" met and organized themselves into an association. In March a constitution was adopted and the name of the "New England Women's Club assumed." To quote from the history of the club, "This title is broad, significant and novel. Club seems to show its combination of sociality and freedom, yet a woman's club was an unknown thing, while New England shows its breadth and locality."

In May, 1868, the organizers of the club determined to make its existence known to the public, and to further this object held a meeting in Chickering Hall, Boston. The meeting was well attended, and the President, Mrs. Caroline Severance, stated the objects of the club to be "to organize the social force of the women of New England, now working nobly in small circles and solitary ways, and to economize time and strength so invaluable as their's by making this centre of thought and action, a centre also of comfort and convenience." Julia Ward Howe, Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney, James Freeman Clark and Emerson addressed the meeting.

In November, 1868, the regular meetings of the club began with 118 members and seventeen associates.

The New England Women's Club has been from the first a hard working one, and the record of what it has accomplished is long and noble. This it was the means of having as early as 1874, women placed on the Boston School Boards. The question of Dress Reform started also in this club.

In 1877, the club was incorporated. Julia Ward Howe being President.

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At almost the same time that the New England women were forming their club, the women of New York, impelled by the same needs, were taking steps to establish the club which has since become so famous, Sorosis, from the Greek 'soreusis,' an aggregation, and which numbers among its members so many of the well-known literary women of America. Ten women started this club, with Alice Carey as the first President. Sorosis is strictly a "literary and intellectual club and does not aim to agitate reform movements, except as intellectual factors in the drama of life;" yet it does much good in a quiet unostentatious way, especially in reaching a helping hand to its members in many an emergency.

The next city to start a women's club was Brooklyn, in 1869.

Since then women's clubs have come into existence all over the country, from New Jersey to California, from Massachusetts to Louisiana, until now there are dozens of incorporated clubs in the United States, to say nothing of many that have not yet reached that dignity.

The Chicago Women's club was organized February, 1876, with twenty-one members, and undertook no work except in "study lines" for seven years. At the end of that time, however, opinions had changed, the need of having a practical outlet for the charitable desires which actuated the members, caused a radical change to be made in the workings of the club, and philanthropic plans were formed and pushed to completion with the most fervent activity.

A Reform Committee was appointed which selected the Country Hospital for the Insane as its first charge. The woman's department in this institution, containing over three hundred patients, had practically no medical supervision. The efforts of this committee, many and repeated, finally "resulted in the appointment of the first woman physician in any of the State or county asylums of the State of Illinois."

One of the sub-organizations of this club is the Woman's Physiological Society which "provided annually for eight years an admirable course of twelve lectures on physiology and hygiene, free to all women."

In the Boston Educational Industrial Union, one of the Committees is the Befriending Committee, for ready help in time of need. It promptly responds to all applications of any nature within its possibilities.

It answers letters asking for friendly information or counsel.

Visits are made to cheer and aid tired and discouraged artists.

Women with young children, victims of brutal and dangerous, becuase drunken, husbands, have received prompt attention with such protective measure as could be secured to them.

Weekly informal talks have been attempted, in the hope of pleasantly occupying a few evening hours for women busy during the day.

Birds have been befriended.

Clothing is given to the poor, and jellies sent to the sick; it sends students and tired housewives on steamboat trips, and does

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many other kindly acts which hardly seemed to come within the province of the other committees of the Union.

The New Century Club in Philadelphia, which dates from 1876, is one of the important clubs of the country, and has engaged largely in philanthropic work. One of its committees in especial, the New Century Guild of Working Women, is wonderfully far-reaching in its aims. The Guild "is a society organized for study, for recreation and social intercourse, for consultation and co-operation in all the interests of women, and for the elevation of the idea of work. It is open to all self-supporting women, from whatever department of industry. Its principle is, that no vocation is too high for its members to enroll themselves under the name of workingwomen." There are a large number of classes in the Guild in which the members, for a merely nominal charge, receive instruction in various branches.

The historian of the N. E. Women's Club says clubs become graver with age, though it may be here stated that the objects of women's clubs are never frivolous. Thus there is in New York a club for studying Political Economy, and in Washington there is the "Woman's Anthropological Society," designed for the study of anthropology.

Nor are women's clubs often formed for pleasure alone. That of course comes, but it is an incident in their existence, not the cause of their being. The constitutions of the various clubs show this very plainly. Thus, for instance, the Brooklyn Woman's Club announces its object to be "the improvement of its members and the practical consideration of the important questions that grow out of the relations of the individual to society, and the effect of existing institutions upon individual development; the basis of membership being earnestness of purpose, love of truth and a desire to promote the best interests of humanity."

The purposes and objects of the Woman's Club of New Orleans are "intellectual culture, moral development and benevolence." The Chicago Women's Club has for one of its aims, "the higher civilization of humanity."

The "Old and New," a Massachusetts Club, is very felicitous in the statement of its objects: "First, mutual improvement; second, the accomplishment of work of a useful or moral nature, which it may be able to do in its own community or elsewhere."

Another Women's Club in Massachusetts covers an exceedingly wide field in its preamble: "We, feeling the necessity which the present and prospective status of women imposes upon us, of informing ourselves more fully, not only upon the subjects of present general interest, but also upon the more important special questions which are now pressing upon all peoples everywhere for a just solution, because involving the welfare of humanity, do agree to form ourselves into an Association for the prosecution and accomplishment of the above named purpose." Perhaps women, when assembled together, do feel under the necessity of reforming the world, but must it not be acknowledged that they set about such