페이지 이미지
PDF
ePub
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed]
[graphic]

PREFACE

This volume comprises a series of papers specially prepared by the leading officers and representative workers of the General Federation of Women's Clubs. This organization now contains five thousand clubs, organized in forty-six state federations, with an aggregate membership of eight hundred thousand women. This includes clubs of all kinds, iiterary clubs and special societies, some with very definite and some with very general aims and purposes. It is, perhaps, not too much to say that this organization with its state federations, its great biennial conventions and its well developed machinery for reaching the homes of America, is one of the most potent influences for good or ill in the social and political life of the nation.

It is not intended in this volume to offer an apology for the existence of any or all of these clubs, but it has seemed to the editors a desirable thing to bring together, if possible, a brief statement of what these clubs have done and what the federation as a whole has done during the past ten years, especially in the general fields of philanthropy and charity, education and civic work. The editors, therefore, asked the officers of the Federation, who have very kindly co-operated with them in this endeavor, to secure from persons who could speak authoritatively a brief and fair discussion of the aims, tendencies and results of the woman's club movement, and to treat this question geographically, as the work in various sections of the country has necessarily been subject to different lines of development and responsive to different influences.

It is to be regretted that through a misunderstanding with one of the writers, who would have gladly co-operated in this work, there is no article representing the clubs of the Northwest. All the other sections of the country have been considered as originally planned. One article containing the opinions of various representative men concerning the woman's club movement, the opinions, collected officially by the General Federation a little over a year ago, is the only one that may seem to have a controversial tone and to

« 이전계속 »