_By Haryot Holt Dey_
There is a pleasant and not irrational fancy in the mind of the writer
that somewhere in space there exists the abiding-place of ideas, and
that as fast as earth-dwellers are ready for them they are released.
Like a bird the idea takes flight and seeks a home in the brain of
some one who is singled out to forward and exploit it for the benefit
of humanity. Thenceforward, that person becomes the apostle of the
idea. "We are not in the possession of our ideas," says Heine, "but
are possessed by them; they master us and force us into the arena
where like gladiators we must fight for them." But it is only to the
elect that great ideas are assigned, one who either through heredity
or by special development is qualified to carry the message. This
fanciful reasoning applies admirably to the idea for women's
clubs--organizations for women--and in its selection of Jenny June it
made no mistake in the character of its agent.
The first woman's club was organized in March, 1868, and was the
outcome of feminine protest, because women were barred from the
reception and banquet tendered to Charles Dickens by the Press Club of
New York City. Among those who applied for tickets on equal grounds
with men was Mrs. Croly, then an active, recognized force in
journalism, and when the idea of a woman's club took possession of her
she had become the most indignant and spirited woman ever locked out
of a banquet hall.
Forty years ago it required courage for a woman to step aside from the
ranks of conservatism and organize a woman's club; it was regarded as
a side issue of "woman's rights," a movement then in grave disrepute.
But Mrs. Croly had dared untrodden paths once before when she stepped
into the field of journalism, and her experience there had developed
self-confidence. She had been writing for women for many years, and
through her mission had acquired instinctive knowledge of their needs;
and so when the affront was put upon her by her male colleagues of the
press she conceived the idea of a club for women. It should be one
that would manage its own affairs, represent as far as possible the
active interests of women, and create a bond of fellowship between
them, which many women as well as men thought at that time would be
impossible of accomplishment. Mrs. Croly wrote in her "History of
Clubs" thirty years later: "At this period no one of those connected
with the undertaking had ever heard of a woman's club, or of any
secular organization composed entirely of women for the purpose of
bringing all kinds of women together to work out their objects in
their own way." And then again: "When the history of the nineteenth
century comes to be written women will appear as organizers and
leaders of great organized movements among their own sex for the first
time in the history of the world."
"The originator specially disavowed any specific object, only asking
for a representative woman's organization based on perfectly equal
terms in which women might acquire methods, learn how to work together
for general objects, not for charity or a propaganda."
"This declaration of principles was the cause of much abusive
criticism, as well as failure to obtain aid and sympathy. Had Sorosis
started to _do_ any one thing, from building an asylum for aged and
indigent 'females' to supplying the natives of Timbuctoo with pocket
handkerchiefs, it would have found a public already made. But its
attitude was frankly ignorant and inquiring. It laid no claims to
wisdom or knowledge that could be of any use to anybody. It simply
felt the stirring of an intense desire that women should come
together--all together, not from one church, or one neighborhood, or
one walk of life, but from all quarters, and take counsel together,
find the cause of separations and failures, of ignorance and
wrong-doing, and try to discover better ways, more intelligent
methods."
Under this banner Sorosis was launched. Alice Cary was its first
president. The story of Sorosis from the beginning is a very
interesting one; from the view-point of the press its doings and
sayings and business affairs generally have always afforded
subject-matter for comment and conjecture. Of its early days Mrs.
Croly wrote: "The social events of the first year were memorable, for
they were the first of their kind, and practically changed the custom
of confining public dinner-giving to men. The first was offered as an
_amende honorable_ on the part of the New York Press Club, and
consisted of a 'breakfast' to which the Press Club invited Sorosis,
but did not invite it to speak or do anything but sit still and eat,
and be talked and sung to. The second was a 'tea' given by Sorosis to
the Press Club at which it reversed the order, furnishing all the
speakers and allowing the men no chance, not even to respond to their
own toast. The third was a 'dinner,'--the brightest and best of the
whole--at which the ladies and gentlemen each paid their own way and
shared equally the honors and responsibilities." This is said to be
the first public dinner at which men and women ever sat down on equal
terms. A report of it in a daily newspaper closed as follows: "The
entire affair was one of the most delightful events of the season, and
will long be held in pleasantest memory by all who had the honor to
participate in it. We believe we violate no secret when we say that
the gentlemen were most agreeably surprised to find their rival club
composed of charming women, representing the best aristocracy of the
metropolis, an aristocracy of sterling good sense, earnest thought,
aspiration and progressive intellect, with no perceptible taint of
strong-mindedness."
The growth and expansion of Sorosis were watched by Mrs. Croly with
the same eager interest with which a mother contemplates the
development of a child, not knowing just how its character will shape,
guarding it always with love, for a potential force in its directing.
It was her spirit that steered it over rough places; that brought
harmony out of discord; that inspired, soothed, provided wise counsel,
and that many times sacrificed personal feelings for the good of the
whole. To do this required mental qualities of a high order--courage,
foresight, judgment, and not a little of the martyr spirit. Women had
never organized before, and the conditions to be met and the problems
to be solved stood absolutely alone, with no precedent to build upon
or decide even the simplest question. What firmness was required in
the leader at that time, when, for example, women who had been her
staunchest allies deserted the ranks because they could not select the
club name! It was a firm hand that kept the unorganized body from
going to pieces on the rocks of dissension, and it was at that time
that the leader proved her inalienable right to her title. She had led
women into the field of journalism, and now she was leading them into
organization. Clubs began to form in all parts of the country, and
when Sorosis arrived at its twenty-first birthday, it was Mrs. Croly's
idea that they should all come together, and when the invitation was
issued they came. Thus was formed the General Federation of Women's
Clubs. At present there are 800,000 women belonging to that
federation; each State has its own federation, New York forming first,
at Mrs. Croly's suggestion, and now containing 32,000 enrolled
members. The General Federation was formed in 1889. The writer recalls
the triumph in Mrs. Croly's tone when she replied to the appeal of a
man who came to her to beg to be given the names of the women
belonging to the federation. "If you choose to send a woman to copy
the names," she said, "you may do so, but it will take her more than a
week." And the General Federation was less than three years old at the
time.
Mrs. Croly organized the Woman's Press Club of New York in 1889. It is
due to her wisdom that it was carried through many crises. She was its
president from the day it was founded to the day of her death; always
its loving teacher, her enthusiasm regarding its development never
flagged. She lived to see it firmly established, a harmonious and
delightful organization, and she was satisfied.
Mrs. Croly was neither parliamentarian, orator, nor politician, but
she had a fund of good sense, wise judgment, and a power of expression
which, could clarify an atmosphere when mere knowledge of the "Rules
of Order" would have failed. She had spiritual vision, and by it she
knew the soul of the club; no amount of dissension could shake her
faith in its ultimate good, and in times of crisis she presided with a
serenity only accountable in the fact that she viewed from the
mountain summit what her associates saw only from the housetop. What
years of development she enjoyed long before the club idea possessed
her, endowing her with wisdom and mental breadth, and what
associations that urged and demanded that she become a student of
sociology! The seeds of thought planted in those early days of
journalistic experience, inclusive of what she terms the "Positivist
Episode," blossomed in her later, more mature years, and all the
harvest she brought and applied to the organization of women. To the
casual observer an organized body of women differed in no particular
form from any ordinary assembly of women. What it was to her one can
only realize by a careful perusal of her writings on club formation,
and the moral awakening that sounded the bugle note of progress when
women began to organize.
Once it came to the hearing of this gentle apostle of development,
that she had been said to represent a cult. The occasion was a
reception given in her honor by one of her clubs on her seventieth
birthday. There had been speeches and congratulations, and the scene
was one of general rejoicing. "Oh, she is the leader of a cult,"
whispered a guest, and the remark was repeated to Mrs. Croly. She
received it with a sorry smile of regret that any one should so
misinterpret the significance of the scene. As if the narrow and
exclusive word "cult" could be applied to an assembly that stood for
organization and human development, which, in her prophetic vision,
only needed time to unite races, and ultimately to extend around the
globe. To her it signified "the opening of the door, the stepping out
into the freedom of the outer air, and the sweet sense of fellowship
with the whole universe, that comes with liberty and light."
Few women carry their enthusiasm till past three-score-and-ten, as
Mrs. Croly did. With the failing of physical strength the wand of
power passed into the hands of younger women whom she hailed as her
successors, and whose growth and development were the blossoms
springing from the seed she herself had planted; and in the last years
of her noble life, when the glow of sunset was on the garden of her
activities, the love she bore her fellow-women was her unfailing joy
and inspiration.
At the time of life when people recognize the fact that their forces
are waning, and that a well-earned period of rest has arrived, Mrs.
Croly set for herself the last task of her busy life. She felt she had
something to tell about the success of her great idea, her message to
women, and she wrote the "History of the Woman's Club Movement in
America," a volume containing eleven hundred and eighty pages, which
told the story of nearly all the clubs in the General Federation. This
book will remain a monument to the founder of women's clubs. Into it
she put the skill and experience of her long years of editorship,
urging every faculty to the work, and applying herself with a degree
of industry that characterized the zeal of her best working years. And
it testifies to the martyr-like nature of her spirit, that she even
rallied from the disappointment consequent upon the financial failure
of the book. The dedication of the work reads as follows: "This book
has been a labor of love, and it is lovingly dedicated to the
Twentieth Century Woman by one who has seen and shared in the
struggles of the Woman of the Nineteenth Century." But nothing that is
good is lost, and the book testifies to the illimitable ideas, the
trust in eternal goodness, and the strength of purpose of one who had
a glorified estimate of latent feminine forces that require to be
developed.