By Emma R. Edwards
Bridging the years between the close of the 19th century and the present day are some 20-odd journals, staunchly bound and neatly inscribed with the proceedings of the organization which today is 25 years old. These record books are not, as one might think, helter-skelter jumbles of facts and whims reported to flighty, impractical women, but sound unerring documents which would do credit to a trained bookkeeper and accountant.
The journey through the years with the various recording secretaries of the club is both humorous and interesting. The beginning of many movements which have since grown great are here recorded. Only a brief commentary on the progress of the club can be attempted; a complete history would require a month to compile and an entire day to read.
At the call of Mrs. Henry Weil, a number of Goldsboro women met at the Messenger Opera House on March 23, 1899, to consider the organization of a Woman’s Club. The idea was met with prompt response, and a temporary organization (which was later made permanent) consisting of 68 charter members had for its first pilots the following officers:
President—Mrs. W.R. Hollowell,
Vice-President—Mrs. F.D. Swindell,
Recording Secretary—Mrs. W.S. O’B. Robinson,
Corresponding Secretary—Miss Anna Lewis.
Treasurer—Miss Irene Stanley.
A constitution, suggested by Mrs. R.R. Cotton of Bruce, pioneer in Woman’s Club work in North Carolina, was adopted, its composition being such that today it stands practically unchanged in its fundamental points. The object of the club was thus expressed:
“Its object shall be to form a recognized center for social and mental culture; to further the education of women for the responsibilities of life; to encourage movements for the betterment of society; to aid by its organized effort such worthy causes as may secure its sympathy; to foster a generous public spirt in the community.”
Meetings, which were always on Thursdays, were held for a while in the opera house, the old court house or at the homes of members. As the growth of the organization made it necessary, rooms were secured in the fall of 1899 over Mr. E.B. Dewey’s office, on West Walnut street, for a yearly rental of $20. This happens to be the same location where the club cafeteria was opened. In 1902, a Valentine Donation party was held and the club room was presented with rugs, pictures, curtains, and other furnishings. In 1907, more commodious quarters were secured in the present building, and many and varied are the stories which the walls of this room might tell. It remains for a later history to chronicle the next move of the organization into its own club house building on the lot which has been recently bought and paid for.
Goldsboro in the early days was little more than a village. The trains ran through Centre street, where was also the “waiting room.” Dust and flies together defied the laws of sanitation. Plumbing, telephones and electric lights were just coming into general use, and the club’s heating bill for one winter was 85 cents for a load of wood. An examination of early expense accounts reveals that the only item which has not advanced in price is the government postal card, which was used to summon members to meetings.
So much for the background. The women who set the club wheels in motion are very well known to you, though some are no longer alive to beam with pride upon this grown-up child which they tenderly nurtured. The women of the past generation were not clinging vines, neither were they stay-at-homes nor ignoramuses; they were women of a broad intelligent sympathy, a ready understanding, a love of home and the things that pertain thereto, and a flaming seal to give of their best to the community. Aggressive, almost to the point of being dictatorial, they dealt with a high hand, pointed out flaws and uncovered municipal scandal that men ignored.
The Woman’s Club will always be indebted to the Board of Aldermen and the newspapers of the city. Publicity has ever been a club tool and the Board of Aldermen have been most co-operative in providing ordinance or enforcing laws which were already enacted. The club women of an earlier day dabbled into everything. Now that theirs is the power to vote, is it true that the glamour of the goal has dimmed their perceptions and dampened their ardor?
From the beginning, the work of the club was conducted by departments or committees. There were five in number, and it is a significant fact that the five departments adopted later by the State Federation were suggested by the Goldsboro Club.
The Village Improvement Society is conspicuously the most outstanding department of the early club work. In one year, this group of women supervised the planning of 420 shade trees. They wanted the saloons closed; they wanted chickens kept off the streets; markets and grocery stores screened; garbage collected systematically; trash barrels and carts provided; streets sprinkled; clean jails; safe places of amusement; better heating and sanitary conditions in the schools; planting of grass plots and trees; in fact, everything which would create a higher type of community in which they might live and rear their families. Is it generally known that the Village Improvement Society had supervision of all the planting of trees, shrubs, and flowers of Herman Park and that each year the organization sponsored a Park Day celebration? Talks to school children were made on Civic Betterment, cleanup campaigns were pushed, sanitary inspectors were “jacked up,” and prolonged agitation led to the establishment of the city County-State Health Department. The attention paid to the demands of the women may be guessed from the following item which appeared in the Goldsboro Daily Argus on June 7, 1902:
“At length we are to have some passing showers. An energetic member of the Woman’s Club made such an earnest appeal to the Argus man this morning to change our weather forecast and say ‘rain’ that we are once got into communication with the clerk of the weather, and informed him the Woman’s Club of Goldsboro demanded rain, and that he might just as well send it at the opening of their campaign as after prolonged hesitation, for they know no such thing as fail, but always appreciate courteous and graceful concession of their demands.”
Not announcing itself so blatantly, yet functioning most efficiently was the Mental Culture Department which divided itself into two groups. The study section sought to improve the respective minds of its members, and exhaustive study courses were undertaken, embracing history, poetry, art, drama, science, geography, economics, and current events. The monumental work of the department, though, was the establishment of a circulating library, from which nucleus has grown today our splendid public library. Mrs. Sol Weil was its moving spirit, and her untiring zeal as chairman of the library committee secured in six years’ time over 1,000 bound volumes and many thousand magazines and periodicals. Twenty specially designated book cases with lock and key were filled with books and magazines and sent to outlying parts of Goldsboro, such as Greenleaf, Webbtown, and Factory Hill. As the years passed and the library grew in volume, these traveling cases were sent to the schools of Wayne county, and in turn to the surrounding counties of Lenoir, Sampson, Duplin, Ashe, Greene, Carteret, Caldwell and Perquimans. Each winter a book reception was held; the whole town was invited, and those who called brought with them a book or its equivalent in money. Thus the library grew. In 1903 it was opened to the public on Friday afternoons; the rush for books is described as significant of the thirst for knowledge. Thus demonstrating the need for a public library, the club asked the city fathers to appropriate a yearly sum for its upkeep, and in 1907, the Woman’s Club Library became the Goldsboro Public Library, soon moving to its present quarters in the city hall, where 6,000 volumes and 2,000 borrowers threaten to overflow the shelves and floor space.
The Child Study Department followed two lines of work—theoretical and practical. the study of authoritative books and articles on child nature, training, and problems was highly beneficial, while on the other hand, the club conducted a free kindergarten in Edmundsontown, held Mother’s Meetings, thus being a forerunner of the Parent-Teacher Association, and ?? mothers to have their children attend school. The sum of $150 was raised to establish a free kindergarten as a memorial to Miss Mary Carcow (??), a beloved school teacher, but this fund was donated, instead to the library fund.
The music department has always followed an informative and constructive line of work. The study of musical history, the works of masters, modern music and concerts of high order have always proved interesting to a small but cultured group. This group incurred and paid off a debt of $300 for the club piano, which was purchased in 1903.
The Domestic Science Department held demonstrations of foods, labor-saving devices, and household equipment. They sold cake pans, measuring spoons and egg beaters and with the proceeds published a cook book, the sale of which added materially to the club treasury. They advocated that manual training, cooking and sewing be made a part of the school curriculum. They organized a sewing class in the mill section, superintended the more substantial side of all club social functions and finally undertook the work of catering for other organizations. Perhaps the standard set in May, 1920, will never be equaled, for then, this group of women with their helpers served a banquet to 1,800 Shriners in the large tobacco warehouse in the city. Fried chicken was handled in barrels, and ice cream was served from tobacco trucks.
From year to year the Department flourished or languished, always managing somehow to keep alive. After frequent changes in name the club departments stood as follows: Civics, Education, Home Economics, Literature and Music. Each department brought to the city famous statesmen, men of society, musicians, or lecturers. Many noted men and women have visited Goldsboro through the invitations of the Woman’s Club, and all have brought a message of inspiration. Money raising attempts, such as bazaars and cake sales were also frequent, as the club treasury, with rising rents and increasing demands, was kept in a state of constant ebb and flow. Championship of any cause requires substantial evidence, and money was freely given. Of early items an example was a gift of $10 toward the establishment of a reform school for boys at Concord. Just recently $100 has been given to the Wayne County Memorial Community Building, which is now in course of construction.
Not until three years after the organization of the Goldsboro club, was an attempt made to group all such clubs within the state into a federation. In 1902 a meeting for this purpose was called in Winston-Salem, and Goldsboro sent its delegates to the meeting, and promptly joined the North Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs, which last year celebrated its 21st birthday in the twin city, where it was founded. The Goldsboro Club invited the State Federation to meet in this city in the fall of 1904, but a diphtheria epidemic made it necessary to postpone the gathering until the Spring of 1905. In 1912 the clubs of the adjoining counties, comprising the eighth district met here for organization. On both occasions lavish hospitality was the order of the day—(line obscured) time with business sessions.
The Goldsboro club has always been prominent in State club circles. There has not been a single year in which some Goldsboro woman has not been signally honored by the conferring of some office or chairmanship in the State Federation; in view of this fact the following cocksure extract from an early report may be pardoned: “We seem to ourselves far ahead of the other clubs in work done. we are the banner club of the State Federation.”
During the past 10 years the club has grown in every direction—in membership, in breadth of outlook, in service rendered, and in department strength. It is now a ?? part of the community with ?? in almost every ?? During the war, club members allied under Red Cross and other ?? and gave freely of themselves and ??? Lectures of national ?? were brought to Goldsboro, the club gave a series of food conservation demonstrations, and $1,500, which represented the sum total of the civic finances, was invested in liberty bonds.
In the past five years many things have happened. In 1920, a $15,000 lot was purchased for the erection of a club building; $1,500 was contributed by generous citizens of Goldsboro, the club’s $1,500 was paid on the debt, leaving a balance due of $9,000 and interest. On top of this the club incurred two more debts—the building of a gasoline filling station and the equipping of a modern cafeteria, amounting to $10,000 additional. Nearly $7,000 have been literally “ground out” by the constant extension of club members. the club circles have labored under financial geniuses for chairmen, and cleverly planned Valentine parties have been made to meet the payments of interest and notes due on the lot, with Miss Mary Faison DeVane, chairman of the Building Fund committee, as Campaign General, ably reinforced by Messrs. Nathan O’Berry, Joe Rosenthal and Joe A. Parker.
The filling station and cafeteria debts have been cleared entirely and recent opportunity to dispose of a portion of the club lot at a profit wiped the slate clean and left enough to buy another lot, if anything more desirable than the first. The club now holds a clear title to two pieces of land valued at approximately $20,000 and is operating the cafeteria on a paying in small, but its ambitions are bounded only by the stars, and in not to very many years, the club hopes to begin the erection of a modern complete building with all accommodations for the conduct of club work.
What is 25 years? There are men and women here tonight who will join with their grandchildren in celebrating the 75th anniversary of this organization in 1974. On the record of its past achievements the club is not content to rest, but will continue to swell its ranks in the onward march for the glory of mankind and a Greater, Grander Goldsboro.
Emma R. Edwards, March 27, 1924
From the front page of The Goldsboro News, Saturday, March 29, 1924
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