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Woodlawn Woman’s Club Records

 Collection
Identifier: spe-nhrc-wwc

Scope and Contents

The Woodlawn Women’s Club Records (WWC), contain a bound volume by Louise J. Pearson titled, History of the Woodlawn Woman’s Club, meeting minutes and yearbooks that chronicle by-laws, membership and programs from 1913 to 1954. The photographs include an individual member and a group shot.

Copies of selected items are also available at the Chicago Public Library, Woodlawn Regional.

Dates

  • 1913 - 1954

Conditions Governing Access

Materials are open without restrictions.

Conditions Governing Use

Please consult staff to determine ability to reuse materials from collection.

Biographical / Historical

During the late winter months of 1895, Mrs. Corrine S. Brown, inspired by the spirit of “get-together-ness” engendered by the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, began planning for an organization for women in the Woodlawn community. A preliminary meeting was held February 4, 1895 in the parlor of Dr. Katherine Clapp’s home on Woodlawn Avenue. Forty interested women attended this meeting and resolved that, “for the promotion of sympathetic unity of feeling and purpose, closer association, and the power of cooperating successfully, we favor the organization of a Women’s Club in Woodlawn.”

Two weeks later, four hundred attended the Woodlawn’s Woman’s Club inaugural meeting held at the Colonial Hotel on February 18, 1895. By the end of its first year, The Woodlawn Woman’s Club (WWC) had incorporated with the State of Illinois, associated with the Illinois Federation of Women’s Clubs, and recruited over two hundred and fifty members.

The WWC adopted as its objectives, “mutual counsel and sympathy, unity of action in case of need, and a promotion of higher social, moral, and educational conditions.” Implementing these goals required the customary division of labor. The WWC formed seven sections to carry out its ambitious program: home, literature and science, art and music, education, reform, philanthropy and recreation. By 1954, the last year for which records exist for this collection, WWC membership had dropped to approximately fifty members. The reasons for this decline in WWC membership and the date of WWC’s subsequent dissolution are not readily discernible from the available evidence.

Extent

1 Linear Feet (in 2 boxes, plus 2 photographs and 1 oversize folder)

Language of Materials

English

Abstract

The Woodlawn Women’s Club Records (WWC), contain a bound volume by Louise J. Pearson titled, History of the Woodlawn Woman’s Club, meeting minutes and yearbooks that chronicle by-laws, membership and programs from 1913 to 1954.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged alphabetically by type of materials or title and alphabetically within.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Transferred from the Chicago Public Library, Woodlawn Regional Library as part of a Dr. Scholl Foundation grant in the 1980s. The materials were originally collected by the Historical Society of Woodlawn.

Related Materials

Associated Clubs of Woodlawn

Clarence S. Darrow Papers

United Woodlawn, Inc. Records

Woodlawn Block Club Council Records

Woodlawn Community Collection

Woodlawn Women’s Club Records

Title
Guide to the Woodlawn Woman’s Club Records
Status
Completed
Author
Original author unknown, 1985. Updated and ingested into ArchivesSpace by Michelle McCoy, 2021
Date
1985
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
Finding aid written in English.

Repository Details

Part of the Special Collections Unit at Harold Washington Library Center Repository

Contact:
Harold Washington Library Center, 9th Floor
Chicago Public Library
400 S. State Street
Chicago IL 60605 United States
(312) 747-4875