CHAPTER LXXV.
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS OF WOMEN.
The most conspicuous and significant movement which challenges attention at the beginning of the new century is that toward organization, and the three great combinations which stand out most prominently in interest and importance are the organization of capital, the organization of labor and the organization of women. We scarcely can go back so far in history as not to find men banded together to protect their mutual interests, but associations of women are of very modern date. The oldest on record was formed in Philadelphia, in the closing days of the eighteenth century—Female Society for the Relief and Employment of the Poor—which in 1798 established a house of industry in Arch St., known as the Home for Spinners. The society is still in active existence and gives employment to a large number of women. Church Missionary Societies of Women had their origin early in the century, but as mere annexes to those officered and managed by men. The first association to approach national prominence was the Female Anti-Slavery Society, founded in Boston in 1833, which almost cost the reputation of every one who joined it, so strong was the prejudice against any public action on the part of women. The American Female Guardian Society and Home for the Friendless was established in New York in 1834, and still exists, having cared for 50,000 children. Later in this decade Female Bible Societies came into being to supply Bibles to penal and charitable institutions and to put them in various public places.
MRS. IDA HUSTED HARPER.
Author of Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, and Joint Editor with her of The History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. IV.
From 1840 to 1850 the old Washingtonian Societies, composed entirely of men, were gradually replaced by the Sons of Temperance, and as they also were decidedly averse to receiving women into their organization, and as the latter were deeply interested in the subject, a few of them timidly formed the Daughters of Temperance, in the face of extreme opposition on the part of both sexes. In the decade following commenced the agitation of the question of Woman Suffrage, and soon conventions in its interest began to be of frequent occurrence, to the joy of the newspapers, most of which treated them with ridicule and denunciation.
The decade ushered in by 1860 brought the long Civil War, during which, in the Sanitary Commission, the Woman's Loyal League, the Freedmen's Bureau and other associations, women displayed an unsuspected power of organization, and at its close their status in many ways was completely changed and greatly advanced.
In 1868 the country was electrified by the advent of Sorosis in New York City and the New England Woman's Club in Boston. These were the first societies formed by women purely for their own recreation and improvement—all others had been for the purpose of reforming the weak and sinful or assisting the needy and unfortunate—and they met with a storm of derision and protest from all parts of the country, which their founders courageously ignored. The last quarter of a century has witnessed so many organizations of women that it would be practically impossible to record even their names. Every village which is big enough for a church contains also a woman's club, and they exist in many country neighborhoods. In the larger cities single societies have from 500 to 1,000 members, and in a number handsome club houses have been built and furnished, some of them costing from $50,000 to $80,000.
From 1850 the annual conventions in the interest of Woman's Rights were called under the auspices of a Central Committee, but in 1869 the National and American Woman Suffrage Associations were formed. Five years later the Woman's Christian Temperance Union sprang into existence. There are now more than one hundred associations of women in the United States which are national in their form and aims, and a number have become international through their alliance with those of other countries. In 1888, in Washington City, the National Council of Women, a heroic undertaking, was founded to gather these vast and diverse organizations into one great body. By 1900 sixteen had become thus affiliated, representing a membership of about 1,125,000 women.