The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-04-11

the first convention of the Associations of
Working girls Societies is close at hand.
The New York, Boston and Brooklyn aSso-
Citations and the Philadelphia New Century
WOrking-women' Guild unite to hold the
convention, whose sessions will begin on
the 18th of April. and will demonstrate the
wonderful growth among self-supportipg
girls of the club idea. Delegates are ex-
pected from many OF the factory towns of
New England, from Pittsburg and ALE
gheny City, from New Brunswick and
Baltimore. There are co-ordinated clubs
in Chicago and other Western cities, but
the members cannot leave their tasks fol
SO long journey. There are seventeen
working girls societies in New York City
and twelve in Brooklyn. The membership
in the metropolitan district is not less than
$500.
The doings of the clubs are easily stated,
except that the whole list would be too
long. They run evening classes in branches
ranging from spelling and cooking to litera-
ture, accomplishments and languages some
of them keep up libraries, gymnasiums and
parlors; they have women physicians to
counsel them on health topics and two
holiday houses on Long Island for sum-
mer vacations. They have Resolve Clubs
and Lend-a- Hand Bands which work for
the others, and once week in the Thirty
eighth-Street Club are held practical talks
which help the girls to make the most OF
themselves.
These Tuesday evenings, when the girls
meet in their own clubhouse with Miss
Dodge, are wonderfully CHEEKY occasions.
The bright-faced girls sing, with shining
eyes:
Stin believing hoping, loving, now from day to day,
We together through LIES shadows strive 10 ind
We believe that living holds for us no good
Greater than the glory of our wonanhood.
And it is a belief in the possibilities of
wOmanhood that forms the clubs heart and
SOfIl IL WOuiH HO n np2Slmlgf pOO1 IN
how completely the working girls are leav-
ing behind thcm that phase of feminine
history in which women were proud of be-
ing helpless in body and mind; they have
got pretty well through the succeeding stage
in which they have been used to lament
such feebleness, but accept it as inevitable,
and are coming rapidly to the higher ideal,
to the realization that it is not only as good
but as grand thing TO be a woman as
man.
Y GU will nowhere find quicker wits than
among the working girls. One evening re-
| Gently the question was asked, What is a
| club? One girl wrote instantly, her scrap
! of paper folded on her knees, "a club
! self and others, too" Again, the ques-
tion was, Toward what is our club
| tendin &" And again came the quick
answers, Toward making bright homes
and brighter children" Toward energy,
culture, hope, pleasure, renewal of inter
est in each other" Sorosis and the other
women's clubs think themselves too
poor to maintain club-houses, but the
birty-eighth-street Club has its own build
ing, lets rooms to pay its rent, and in the
evening the parlors fairly twinkle and
sparkle and laugh with light as the girls
who have been behind counters or at their
looms at bread-winning tasks all day close
one door on dull care and open another to
happiness and knowledge. In their con-
vention, which will be the first of its sort
ever called. the girls will demonstrate that
one of the finest products of the nineteenth
century evolution is the eager, earnest,
in elIinenf NnrlIInn girl