As the years went on, a new problem grew out of the working-girls' club movement. The members married, but they were not willing to lose the social affiliations of girlhood; they were unwilling often, reluctant always, to sever club relationship. On the other hand, the members felt that a married woman should remain home in the evening with her husband. Often the married member would come carrying her baby, for the club represented the mother's social relations. The next step was natural, the forming of a club of the married members to meet in the afternoon. The first working-girls' club, of which Miss Dodge is still president, formed, as the Domestic Circle, a club of married members.
The A. O. V. Matrons at the Cottage Settlement are the married members of the A. O. V. Club, formed when the matrons were little girls. Other working-girls' clubs have contributed to the membership of other married women's clubs.
Naturally, the subjects discussed in these clubs are those bearing on housekeeping and the training of children. The training received in the clubs enables the married members to conduct their business with dignity and dispatch. They are trained to club life, and have learned how to avoid unnecessary friction.
Some clubs plan a winter's work ahead. These programmes show a broadening of interest and sympathy, not only in the technical affairs, the home and the care of children, but the larger affairs outside of the home that makes its environment. It must be that the girls who have been club members make more companionable wives than the women who have not had their opportunities. The children are always present at the meetings of the mothers. Various devices and methods are employed to entertain and interest them. What the mothers' club means to the little ones was unconsciously revealed very recently in the statement of a young mother: "—— is always home from school five minutes earlier club day. She runs home to get ready."
The working-girls' club has in the process of its evolution become a family institution.
CHAPTER VI.
A SOCIAL EXPERIMENT.
The Residents of the College Settlement learned in the first year of their work in Rivington Street to sympathize deeply with the married women, the mothers in the region.