Association for the Advancement of Women

[1] The Association was organized at the very beginning of the club movement, to interest the women of the country in matters of high thought and in all undertakings found to be useful to society, and to promote their efficiency in these through sympathetic acquaintance and co-operation.

It had a number of distinguished presidents and held congresses in many States, which almost invariably led to the formation of local clubs for study and mutual improvement, as well as to good works in other lines.

Among the cities in which a congress was held were New York, Syracuse, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Des Moines, Denver, Madison, St. Paul, Toronto, Baltimore, Memphis, Knoxville, Louisville, Atlanta, and New Orleans.

She suggested that those best-fitted might prepare papers to be read, that resolutions on practical subjects relating to the welfare of women might be offered, discussed and acted upon, and that mutual counsel and help might be rendered.

It was voted that the Call express the desire to form an Association for the Advancement of Woman, and that numbers shall not be the object of the Congress, but the gathering of the earnest few who shall constitute a deliberative assembly, to confer concerning the best interests of their sex.

At this Conference we hope to found an Association for the Advancement of Women, at the annual gatherings of which shall be presented the best ideas and the most advantageous methods of our foremost thinkers and writers.

In this first gathering we are already assured of the attendance and best efforts of a goodly number of the pre-eminently talented, cultivated and beneficent women who, by means of higher education, broader fields of industry, better laws, artistic and scientific pursuits, business discipline, and an enlightened motherhood, hope to remove the sources of misery, and cure the evils that so many of our benevolent women spend their lives in ameliorating.

[3] Subjects for papers and discussion included:[3] On September 26, the Committee reported a hearty response to the Call from all parts of the country far exceeding their expectations, and that the class of women who had given their names for this work, warrant the Committee in believing that the movement is destined to be a grand success; that its deliberations will be earnest and intelligent, and will be conducted in such a calm, rational, temperate and Christian spirit as to compel the respect of the world at large.

[4] By the 1880 Congress, the value of the Association was more and more seen to consist in the skilled, but impromptu discussion after each paper, and in the real importance of the Executive Sessions, where each State, through its representative, made known its educational and social progress during the year.