The General and Texas Federations of
Women’s Clubs
The
General Federation of Women’s Clubs
La Retama Club operated in conjunction with the General Federation of
Women’s Clubs and Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs within its first year,
and the beginnings of both organizations are essential in understanding the
Corpus Christi organization. Through their histories, one can see the
connection between local, state and nation clubs. Often, the types of
campaigns the clubwomen undertook were a result of causes that the state and
national federations worked on as well, like pure food and parks and
playgrounds. In other cases, the local women’s clubs tailored state
and federal messages to meet local needs like in the formation and upkeep of
Corpus Christi’s first public library, La Retama Library.[1]
American women’s literary
clubs date back as far as the turn of the nineteenth century. Free
black women on the East Coast organized some of the earliest women’s
literary clubs. Their purpose was “mutual aid and self-education.
Soon, white women’s literary clubs began to form. It was at this time
that the oldest known lasting literary club in the United States, the
Ladies’ Association for Educating Females in Jacksonville, Illinois, held
its first meeting in 1833. This parallels a rise in women’s higher
education in the South. It was part of Southern society for young
women to be educated in the arts. Southern women of the planter class
were even more likely than most of their northern counterparts to spend time
in academies of higher education that offered courses in religion, Latin,
literature and sciences. “The advancement courses provided to young
men were the standard by which contemporaries judged the level of education
open to young women—not the courses in sewing and the decorative arts that
were considered mere appendages of femininity.” Therefore, although
still scarce, women began exchanging ideas and literary discussions early in
the nineteenth century that then formed into a wider reaching movement after
the Civil War.[2]
After the war, it is no
wonder, then, that growth in opportunity opened the doors to a wide
emergence of women’s literary groups. Jane Cunningham Croly’s Sorosis
formed as part of “a widespread phenomenon, as if, one woman remarked, by
mental telepathy.” Croly, a journalist and feminist, founded the Sorosis in
1868. Under the penname Jennie June, Croly often wrote about the
subjugation of women using experiences from her and her friends’ lives as
subject matter. Other clubwomen often credited Croly's articles for
inspiring them to form their own local clubs. Because of the exclusion of
women from a dinner honoring Charles Dickens by the New York Press Club,
Croly began an organization to “improve women’s status.” Therefore, in
April 1868, the women’s literary society, Croly formed Sorosis. Not open to
anyone and by invitation only, original members included Anne Botta, who
wrote for the New York Mirror; Josephine Pollard, with the New
York Ledger; poets Alice and Phoebe Cary; and a number of other
authoresses. Throughout the club’s life, it maintained distance from
men because, “It saw its work in the association of women, not in
integration.” These local organizations provided small groups of women
with a forum for analysis of literature, but did little to expand their
goals to include others. This soon changed with the creation of the
General Federation of Women’s Clubs.[3]
The formation of the
General Federation of Women’s Clubs in April of 1890 through a convention of
literary clubs in honor of Sorosis’ 21st birthday began the
federated club movement. On the mistaken understanding that Sorosis
had been the nation’s oldest literary club, the General Federation’s
founder, Jane Cunningham Croly, called together as many of the United
States’ literary clubs as she could find in its honor. This
celebration was the first meeting of the General Federation. Actually,
as Frances Willard pointed out at the 1888 International Council of Women’s
convention, “When it was decided to invite Sorosis [to the 1888 convention],
we though it was the oldest club, but the New England Club vies with Sorosis
in having been organized a little earlier; but no matter who was first,
somebody must be first, and I have noticed that when any movement comes into
the world it springs up in a dozen places at the same time.” Both
organizations were founded in 1886. Actually, the first known woman’s
club of this kind still in existence during the Progressive Era was founded
in 1833 in Jacksonville, Illinois, under the name of the Ladies’ Association
for Educating Females. The club published their first yearbook in
1839, and in 1908, it was the oldest known club yearbook in existence.
The club joined the Illinois State Federation in 1896 under the name of the
Jacksonville Ladies’ Education Association.[4]
During its first decade,
the 1890’s, the General Federation was responsible for increased club
activity nationwide. The General Federation’s purpose was specifically
to “bring into communication with each other the various women’s clubs
throughout the world, in order that they may compare methods of work and
become mutually helpful.” It took more than a decade after the General
Federations formation for an Act of Congress, with the signature of
President William McKinley, to charter the organization on March 3, 1901.[5]
The
Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs
In Texas, the Woman’s
Congress held its first annual convention at the State Fair in Dallas,
October 31 through November 3, 1894. At this convention, attendees changed
the name of the group to The State Council of Women of Texas. The Fort
Worth Mirror gave two important reasons for this change. According to
the Mirror, the change brought “the organization into harmony with
the National Council of Women” and freed “the federation from the
objectionable inference that it had any political significance whatever, the
word ‘Congress’ being clothed with only a political definition by some."[6]
This fear of politicization
plagued the women of Texas for years to come and caused single-issue
political organizations like the National American Woman Suffrage
Association to remain grossly underdeveloped in the state until the years
surrounding World War I. The Woman’s Wednesday Club of Fort Worth was
credited for first “suggesting The Federation of Women’s Literary Clubs of
Texas into a state organization” in 1895. Yet it took until 1897, when the
Woman’s Club of Waco sent out a call to women’s clubs all over the state,
for a convention to take place on May 13 and 14th in Waco.
Twenty-one clubs responded to the first meeting of Texas Federation of
Literary Clubs. The Woman’s Monday Club of Corpus Christi organized
this same year.[7]
In the original
constitution of the Texas Federation, the purpose of the organization
stated, “to advance and encourage Texas women in literary work, to promote
and encourage fraternal intercourse among literary clubs within and without
the state, and to secure all the benefits resulting from organized
efforts.” This early description, although the club’s purpose changed from
being solely literary, remained the same. Its close connection with the
activities of the local clubs proved to be strengthening for both sides in
networking and numbers. Contemporary writer and clubwoman, Mary Ritter
Beard, succinctly described the process by which and why local clubs
federated. She wrote,
In thousands of out-of-the-way places which
hardly appear on the map, unknown women with large visions are bent on
improving their minds for no mere selfish advancement, but for equipping
themselves to serve their little communities. They form local
associations. These local associations are federated into state and
national associations. The best thought and experience of one
community soon become the common possession of all. Thus, we see in
the making before our very eyes, a conscious national womanhood. Here
is a power that will soon disturb others than the village politician.[8]
The Texas Federation, also,
set the precedent for the sharing of information across club lines,
therefore contributing to the communication of different types of club
activities. This communication was important in the spread of
activities that proved successful among local groups. Yet the state
and national federations left the implementation of such things to the local
group that knew the needs and people of their community best. In 1928,
Mrs. Day Mills, the incoming Texas Director of the General Federation,
communicated to local affiliates what had long been the understood rule of
taking the initiative for your community. She wrote, “The program of
the Federation of the Women’s Clubs includes that study that makes for
individual culture and includes everything that helps toward the betterment
of humanity […] it is your duty and privilege to select the part or phase of
these department or divisions of work that is suited to your individual
community or state needs and study to apply that."[9]
Jessica Brannon-Wranosky
Notes
[1]
For reference, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs was the national
organization for federated clubwomen, and the Texas Federation of
Women’s Clubs was the state organization for federated Texas clubwomen.
[2]
Scott, Natural Allies, 13; Christine Farnham, The Education of
the Southern Belle: Higher Education and Student Socialization in the
Antebellum South (New York: New York University Press, 1994): 126,
34. Scott, The Southern Lady, 110-111.
[3]
Scott, Southern Lady, 152; Karen J. Blair, The Clubwoman as
Feminist: True Womanhood Refined, 1868-1914 (New York: Holmes and
Meier Publishers, 1980), 15. It is widely accepted that this
source is one of the best histories of the General Federation’s
beginnings.
[5]
Blair, 93-95, 141n, 15; Mc Arthur, 9.
[8]
Mary Ritter Beard, Woman’s Work in Municipalities (New York: Arno
Press, 1972) rpt. Mary Ritter Beard, Woman’s Work in Municipalities
(1915), 318, Christian, 17.
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