New England Women's Club

[1][2] Harriet Hanson Robinson, founder of the National Woman Suffrage Association of Massachusetts, and suffragist Caroline Severance worked with Julia Ward Howe to organize the club.

A few men had attended the initial meeting, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Freeman Clarke, Octavius Brooks Frothingham, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and Amos Bronson Alcott.

"[7] The goal of the New England Women's Club was to "provide a suitable place of meeting in Boston for the convenience of its members, and to promote social enjoyment and general improvement."

Among the many lecturers in the club's first decades were: Louis Agassiz, Amos Bronson Alcott, George Thorndike Angell, Richard Henry Dana Jr., Ralph Waldo Emerson, Annie Adams Fields, James T. Fields, William Lloyd Garrison, Edward Everett Hale, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Henry James, and Mary Tyler Peabody Mann.

[4] Around 1903, the club moved its headquarters from Park Street to the newly constructed New Century Building on Huntington Avenue, designed by architect Josephine Wright Chapman.