WOMEN'S CLUBS, associations of women organized for purposes of study, recreation, or for the promotion of certain philanthropic or political ends. Organization among women in the United States has grown to enormous pro portions. It is impossible to compute with any degree of accuracy the membership of women's cluNI, outside the federated bodies. The num ber probably reaches 3,000,000. Though it is generally said that women's clubs did not exist until the 19th century, there were clubs during the 18th century in the colonies. A •female club' was flourishing in New York in 1747 and there was an earlier one in 1735. The tea table undoubtedly was responsible for social meetings in which the germ of the woman's club may be found. Reading circles and sewing societies, church societies and philanthropic so cieties existed throughout the country; but they were not organized. One of these e clubs was the Sharon Literary Club founded in January 1779, in Sharon, Conn. with the Rev. Cotton M. Smith chairman and John C. Smith secretary. The purpose was to promote a taste for the study of belles lairs: and of logic and to gain some skill in the useful Freeman's Art of Debate.' The club published a magazine called The Clio.
The club movement did not begin until the 19th century. There was a Female Society for the Relief and Employment of the Poor in 1798; in 1834 the American Female Guardian Society was established, and in 1840-50 the Daughters of Temperance came into existence. During the Civil War a great number of or ganizations were formed, such as the Sanitary Commission, Women's Loyal Legion, Freed man's Bureau, to say nothing of the many phil anthropic bodies, the outcome of the conditions. After the Civil War there was a demand for co-operation and popular education, and Sorosis and similar clubs were founded. Undoubtedly a great deal of impetus came from the suffrage organizations.
Suffrage In 1848 Eliza beth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott issued the first call for a national suffrage association.
These two women presided and organized the association. It had been a disputed question whether any woman could, or would, be aide to fill this important position, the decision ulti mately being given in the affirmative, by the famous negro orator — Frederick Douglass. Susan B. Anthony immediately joined the nth( r two women, and from their united efforts. •Individual Clubs' were formed. Their aim as expressed in their platform being to 'pro mote the educational, intellectual, legal and po litical equality of women, especially the right of suffrage.' From authentic records it has been proved that in 1859 Miss Constance Faunt Lee Roy founded the Minerva, a Woman's Literary Club at New Harmony, Ind., and Friends in Coun cil, a reading club, founded in Quincy, Ill., in 1866. The 'Sorosis' (q.v.), the first permanent woman's club organized, is still in existence.
The first associated work of women was re ligious and philanthropic. During the first 10 years of the 19th century a number of religious societies of women were organized to create funds and aid in church mission work, such as the 'Cent" societies of 1801 and 1804. There were also women's auxiliaries to the Board of Foreign Missions. In 1839 there were 680 of these societies but their limited character pre vented them from being productive, and they were nearly extinct by 1900. In 1864 the first independent union of women missionary socie ties was formed in New York by Mrs. Dore mus and soon afterward every Protestant de nomination had its organized Woman's Auxil iary to the American Board of Home and Foreign Missions. The oldest purely women societies in America were started for missionary and church work, and the first on the list of these was the Female Charitable Society of Baldwinsville, N. Y. Another early organiza tion was the Piqua Ohio Female Bibleciety, founded in 1818 with nine women. Toward the end of the century the society numbered 900.