One of the earliest coalition of women’s groups in Indiana was the women’s club movement which can trace its origins to the Female Social Society of New Harmony. Founded in 1825 by the state’s first recorded feminist, 30-year old Scottish born Frances “Fanny” Wright, the Female Social Society was the first Hoosier woman’s club, and may well have been the first such club in the United States. Composed of educated European-born women, the Society was a discussion group inquiring into the “current questions” of the day — abolition, suffrage, public education for all children, education for women, women’s property rights, and improved marriage and divorce laws. After a time, this club passed into history.
Some years later, women’s literary clubs were organized in the Indiana communities of Bloomington (Edgeworthalean Society) and Vernon (Clionian Society), and in 1858 New Harmony once again had a female social society, the Minerva Society. Although it wasn’t the first woman’s club in the state, the place where the Minerva Society was founded, the Fauntleroy House, “has been enshrined by the Indiana Federation of Clubs as the birthplace, or at least the best known cradle, of the women’s club movement in America.”
After serving as nurses, munition workers, and keeping the family farm going while the men were serving in the army, women emerged from the Civil War with renewed determination to advance the causes of interest to them. At the first Woman’s Congress, held in New York City in the fall of 1873, among the subjects discussed were higher education for women, equitable monetary division between husband and wife, women’s place in government, women in church and pulpit, co-education of the sexes, women in the medical and legal professions, women in art and science, and enlightened motherhood. To further promote the goals of women, the Association for the Advancement of Women (A.A.W.) was organized. One of the new members of the A.A.W. was an Indianapolis woman, Martha Nicholson McKay, who, after weeks of effort could only prevail upon six of her friends to join her at her home on February 18, 1875 to form the Indianapolis Woman’s Club. Laura Giddings Julian of Irvington, wife of former Congressman George W. Julian, was elected the club’s first president. Seventeen years later, her daughter Grace Julian Clarke would become the founder of the Irvington Woman’s Club. The initial hesitancy among Indianapolis women to join in the formation of the Indianapolis Woman’s Club soon passed, and membership reached the limit of seventy-five with a waiting list.
The club movement was encouraged by an editorial in Scribner’s Monthly magazine that said, “Let woman avail herself of the means at hand for making her life interesting, that she may conquer the realm that legitimately is hers. We put the club in her hands and beg her to use it.” In Indianapolis, this charge to organize resulted in the formation of the Clio Club when a group of high school and college educated women gathered at the home of Elizabeth Hadley in March 1878. The initial membership of 25 was composed mostly of married women with children. Originally named Conversation Club No. 3 because it was the third group formed in Indianapolis for “literary and social improvement,” the club was later re-named for the Muse of History. Clio members studied countries, prepared papers to be read on a nation’s institutions, literature, art, and prominent public figures. Later, discussion included “civic and social betterment and fads and ‘isms’ of the day.”
In the ensuing years, women came together to form other clubs beginning in February 1885 when eight Indianapolis women interested in literature, science and art met at the home of Cornelia Fairbanks, wife of the future vice president of the United States, and formed the Nameless Literary Circle. The club met every two weeks, and some months later adopted the name Fortnightly Literary Club. Later that spring, several former members of Catherine Merrill’s literary classes met at the Bates House in the apartment of Charlotte Cathcart Bates and joined in forming the Catherine Merrill Club. In addition to these Indianapolis clubs, other Indiana communities were organizing their own woman’s clubs, and five years later on June 6, 1890 after a year’s work among the state-wide clubs, the Indiana Union of Literary Clubs came into being. Later, the state organization became the Indiana Federation of Clubs with several Marion County clubs belonging to the Seventh District. The state federation was a member of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs.
Locally the women’s club movement continued when 15 women who had been studying United States history organized the Magazine Club on June 17, 1890 at the Woodruff Place home of Margery Huey. As the name implied, the club originally was formed for the study of magazines, but later it took up the study of literature, history, and art. An annual magazine was published by the club containing contributions by its members. Two days later, another group of women who had been studying Greek and Roman history were invited to tea by the class teacher, Mary Allen Evans Woollen, to consider forming a club for social and educational purposes. The name “Over the Teacups” was suggested for the club.
Women’s clubs continued to grow in popularity from the 1890s onward in Indianapolis. The suburban community of Irvington also saw women coming together to organize clubs that had familiar names like those in the city — Irvington Woman’s Club and Irvington Fortnightly Club. African American women formed the Woman’s Improvement Club as a literary group and to provide for “immediate relief to worthy colored families.” Later it provided for the care of black tuberculosis patients. By the end of the first decade of the 20th century, the Indianapolis Blue Book listed 29 women’s clubs, and when the Indianapolis Star published its directory of Women’s Clubs in 1964 the number of clubs stood at 267.
While clubwomen met in private homes during the year from October to May once or twice a month, to hear and discuss papers prepared by members, drink tea and coffee from fine china, and converse on the issues of the day, they also provided philanthropic support to area hospitals, the Red Cross, schools, cultural events, children’s homes, and homes for the aged. However, in the later third of the 20th century, changing times found more women working outside of the home and participating in causes outside of traditional club life. This together with aging club memberships forced many of the established women’s clubs to disband, but the strength and determination fostered in these earlier organizations can be seen in the later waves of the feminist movement. Today’s Hoosier women are the heirs of Fanny Wright.