|
The General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC), founded in 1890 during the Progressive Movement, is a federation of over 3,000 local women's clubs which promote civic improvements through volunteer service. Many of its activities and service projects are done independently by local clubs through their communities or GFWC's national partnerships. GFWC maintains nearly 100,000 members〔(【引用サイトリンク】website=GFWC.org )〕 throughout the United States and internationally. GFWC remains one of the world's largest and oldest nonpartisan, nondenominational, women's volunteer service organizations. 〔Blair 1998〕 == History == The GFWC was founded by Jane Cunningham Croly, a leading New York journalist. In 1868 she helped found the Sorosis club for professional women. It was the model for the nationwide GFWC in 1890. In 1889 Mrs. Croly organized a conference in New York that brought together delegates from 61 women's clubs. The women formed a permanent organization in 1890 with Ella Dietz Clymer presiding. In 1901 it was granted a charter by Congress. Dietz proclaimed, "We look for unity, but unity in diversity" and that became the GFWC motto. Southern white women played a central role in the early years. Local women's clubs initially joined the General Federation directly but later came into membership through state federations that began forming in 1892. The GFWC also counts international clubs among its members. In 1900, the GFWC met in Milwaukee, and Josephine Ruffin, a black journalist, tried to attend as a representative of three Boston organizations – the New Era Club, the New England Woman's Club and the New England Woman's Press Club. Southern women led by president Rebecca Douglas Lowe, a Georgia native, told Ruffin that she could be seated as a representative of the two white clubs but not the black one. She refused on principle and was excluded from the proceedings. These events became known as "The Ruffin Incident" and were widely covered in newspapers around the country, most of whom supported Ruffin. At the samed time Lowe and the Georgia Education League provided kindergartens for black children in Georgia.〔Mary Jane Smith, "The Fight to Protect Race and Regional Identity within the General Federation of Women's Clubs, 1895-1902." ''Georgia Historical Quarterly'' (2010): 479-513 (in JSTOR )〕〔"Race Discrimination", ''Congregationalist'' 85:24, 1900 June 14.〕〔"Color-Line in Women's Clubs", ''Congregationalist'' 86:6, 1901 February 9〕 In a time when women's rights were limited the State Federation chapters held grassroots efforts to make sure the woman's voice was heard. Through monthly group meetings, to annual charter meetings, women of influential status within their communities could have their feelings heard. They were able to meet with state officials in order to have a say in community events. Until the right to vote was granted, these women's clubs were the best outlet for women to be heard and taken seriously. Women's clubs spread very rapidly after 1890, taking up some of the slack left by the decline of the WCTU and the temperance movement. Local clubs at first were mostly reading groups focused on literature, but increasingly became civic improvement organizations of middle-class women meeting in each other's homes weekly. To The clubs avoided controversial issues that would divide the membership, especially religion and the prohibition issue. In the South and East, suffrage was also highly divisive, while there was little resistance to it among clubwomen in the West. In the Midwest, clubwomen had first avoided the suffrage issue out of caution, but after 1900 increasingly came to support it. 〔 Stephen M. Buechler, ''The Transformation of the Woman Suffrage Movement: The Case of Illinois, 1850-1920'' (1986) pp 154-57〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「General Federation of Women's Clubs」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|