Authored by Eva Rapoff

Women, no matter where we are in history, and how little agency we are given, will always find a way to drive social reform, and in few places is this ability to persevere, to create agency rather than to wait to be given it, shown as well as in the women’s clubs movement of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Women’s clubs, such as Jane Cunningham Croly’s Sorosis, which formed the origin of the Federation of Women’s Clubs, were first borne out of consternation at exclusion (Scheer, 2002). These clubs were originally literary clubs, full of predominantly upper- and middle-class women, but as the concept grew, and spread across the country, the purpose bloomed into a vehicle for social reform. As well – as perhaps somewhat of an ironic legacy of Sorosis – these clubs were often unpopular, or merely tolerated by men, while women flocked to them in droves, driven by the prospect of social life and work. (Savage 1916)