The morning news., 1888-03-18
CLUB HOUSE FOR WOMEN
THE BROOKLYN WOMAN'S CLUB
AND ITS PROJECT.

the City of Churches May Try.
NEW YORK, March ia women's club
house.
And why not
The womans club has multiplied in every
city and town. 1t is an accepted feature of
civilization. Why should it auy longer heSi-
tate to shake off its swaddliug clothes, step
forth fully grown, acquire property, build a
house and have a local habitation of its
own?
And Brooklyn may dare the first step
after all
The project of a woman's club house has
been discussed in New York at intervals for
ten years. Sorosis has talked of building or
buying club headquarters once and again,
but always ended by resting content with
rent-free parlors for its meetings at Del
monlcos. Two years ago there was serious
consideration of the feasibility of organiz-
ing group of well known women of
good social position into woman's club
which should take floor somewhere in the
central shopping district, between Four
teenth and Twenty third street, where the
members could meet during tue day fo-
that informal social intercourse which city
conditions are making progressively more
dlfflcult, read the papers and magazines,
write letters or get lunch, and which should
be to artists, to teachers and stenographers,
to writers and to that growing body of cult
waited women with refined tastes, scanty
means and bare lodgings pleasant rendez-
vous, bringing them Ill touch with some of
the bright things they might otherwise miss
out of their lives. Mrs. John Bigelow, Mrs..
John Sherwood and the Marquise LAMA
interested themselves i'll the movement but
no active business steps We're taken.
Still more recently Courtland Palmer has
advocated a radical departure for the Nine
teenth Century Club, proposing that it
erect a club ho-s Sc with library, dining
rooms, parlors and gymnasia open to men
and women, but even that progressive body
was found by no means ready for such a
clutch ct the millennium.
The first club house for women in the
East will very probably be situated in the
City of Churches. The Brooklyn Woman'S
Club has taken the initiative. l met a
member Of this organization yesterday.
owe have about eighty women in the
club" she said, thoroughly representative
womenRll of them, standing for some of
the best elements in the city. The club it.
self has been a little over-shadowed in the
past by Sorosis, possibly, but it is as COM
pact, strong and harmonious a body of
women as exists in the country. We have
wished for permanent home for the club
for soma years. Now a Building Commit
tee has been appointed, and unless unlocked
for obstacles present themselves there will
be formed very shortly within the member
ship Woman's Club Building Association
to raise funds to build or buy as the case
may be. The first pledges for shares have
already been received. You will under
stand that the club is not definitely pledged
to the undertaking as yet and nothing
may be done for some time, if at all, but
lawyers and business men encourage us to
proceed.
"And what sort Of club house is pro-
posed and for whatg"
For a center for the educated women of
the city. To promote the best culture of
women, if you like. No architec has been
engaged and no plan decided upon, perhaps
we are more likely to buy than to build I;
but the house must have parlor5 for club
use, dining-room arrangements, reading
rooms, library, and probably, so as to yield
some return for the Investment, offices on
The upper floors for studios, women physi-
Clans stenographers and business women
There Thousand and one charitable COM
mittees, literary societies, classes IN all sorts
of things indicating the new activities of
women which want convenient meeting
places and would find them preferably at
such a club house. There is no reason
why it should not be q good business in
vestment. And consider the social end of
it. Society resolves itself more and more
into entertaining and being entertained at
more or less frequent intervals with more
Or less ceremony. Some means of meeting
on an easier basis aside from cliques or sets,
is an imperative necessity. Even the dry
goods stores have taken to opening parlors
as rendezvous for women. The club rooms
will be a convenience in this way and much
ThoU will hA q T0oiy1f Of dana ~,
for the educational, social and industrial
advancement of women. 1t means recrea-
ton, OF course. 1t means exchange of ideas
aud development of new ideas. 1t means
growing and enlarging ones horizon. 1t
means work 1t may mean great many
things that we don't rhink of now"
The Brooklyn Woman's Club is the third
in point of age in the country, only Sorosis
and the New Engla d Woman's Club hav-
ing been organized in advance of it. 1t
dates back to 1859. Like all societies of its
kind, it is educational and literary in char
acter, though it has had from the start
strong practical bent, and has inaugurated
and carried through several enterprises
which might have led one to prophesy that
it would be the pioneer club Of the East to
try the experiment of a broader club life
The Brooklyn Business Woman's Union. one
of the very few successful attempts to estab-
liSu a DDdIdlHS hOuot lOi ocll-SuIDOTllDR
women, which should supply something
of home comfort and home atmosphere at
moderate charges and without compromis-
ing the independence Of the individual was
founded by the club and put upon a pros
porous basis though afterward placed in
the hands of separate trustees The club
has taken an active I'M erest in educational
matters, and has petitioned three Mayors
for the appointment of women on the city's
board of education. 1t supports at the
present time free kindergarten. II is made
up of well-balanced, progressive women
who allow themselves to run off into
no vagaries, but are active in
many things worth doing. The Rev.
Celia Burleigh was It's first President, Mrs.
Amelia K. Wing fills that office now.
Laura c. Hollo ay aud Olive Thorne Mil
Ter. the writers, Mrs. Helen Hi5cock Backus,
President of the Coll giate Alumne, and
Trustee of Vassar Colleges and others
known in the literary and social life of
Brooklyn and New York are active mem
bers IL holds fortnightly meetings in the
rooms of tire Women's Business Union, at
50 Willoughby street, at present, and will
probably look for site for its permanent
headquarters in a central location not far
from the City Hall.
A woman's club house is not an untried
scheme. There is none east of Michigan,
but that State and Wisconsin have each
one. The Woman's Club OF Wisconsin, WITH