The Saint Paul globe., 1899-01-01
SEVEN CLUB HOUSES.
Handsome Structures Built and
Managed by Club Women.

The current number of the Womans Homo
Companion devotes a full page to women's
club houses, accompanying sscriptions with
cuts of seven handsome structures. The
homes of the Milwaukee club and the New
Century club, of Philadelphia, are splendid
buildings, but they are both surpassed in
elegant simplicity by the Propyleum. of In
dianapo.is.
This classic structure says the Com
panion, "of stone, is Romaneaque in archi-
tectura and cost its fair projectors precisely
SIS COO. Its formal opening was a red-letter
event for prominent women from all over
the country, who came to celebrate in the
big auditorium.
This popularity of club houses for women
is all the more significant when it is con-
sidered that scarcely ten years ago there was
not single womans club house in the coun-
try. The pioneer structure is the Athenaeum
a beautiful building erected by the wide
awake wcmen of Milwaukee, Wis. From every
standpoint the enterprise was successful, and
Its plan of procedure has been widely fol-
lowed by fair financiers. Inasmuch as its
scheme has proved so satisfactory it is in
terestiDg to know how these fair home-mak-
ers ventured on the uncertain sea of invest
ment 1t was done, in word, by forming
a stock company within the club with a
capitalization of $25, ,G00 divided into shares of
$25 each. From time to time improvements
have been made, until the property is now
valued at $4,000 The building has been
not only a center Of woman's activities, but
what is more to the pecunary point, it has
earned handsome dividends each year.
THE new Century club house. of Philadel-
phia is built in the style of the Italian
Renaissance. and embellished on the interior
with groups of fresco figures 1t Is centrally
located. aud cost $4,000. The architect was
woman, and the establishment, as far as
possible. was done by feminine fingers"
One OF the cuts shows the structure owned
by the Ladies' Literary club of Grand Rap
ids, Mich. 1t will be remembered that this
building was fully described in The Globe
several months ago. 1t was shown at that
time that the house earned over s., 500 year
for the ladies.
The writer in the Companion thinks that
"these structures, monuments alike to wonan-
ly wisdom and feminine financering stand
in imposing refutation to the old-time suppo-
sition-though the Impeachment was proba-
bly, true once upon a time-that the fair sex
knows nothing about dollars except perhaps
their wholesale disbursement in persol pleas
ure.
Somewhat surprising it is, in view of the
rampant rush among club women for ele-
CANT trysting places of their own, that not
one of the metropolitan centers possesses
such a club house for the fair sex. Probably
it is not SO surprising when one pauses to
ponder that such a financial enterprise in
the downtown district of big city msans the
expediture of a small fortune, and might
prove brick and mortar bugbear. There is
however, mighty wave of club house en-
thusiasm in several cities. and notably New
York Chicago and Boston are in the throes
of this popular s'To build or not to build -
The club women Of the Hub city in fact
have already enthusiastically organized as it
were. and the fair Chicagcans have a club
house committee industriously agitating over
plans for edifice which they expect soon
to build"
Political economy clubs and the public gen.
orally are interested in the result Of the
strike of the women weayers of the Higgins