The Club issued a press release claiming that the “object of this organization shall be to gain the co-operation of all loyal and progressive citizens in making the Magic City a city beautiful, to promote health and cleanliness, to advance present conditions, and to point to higher ideals.”[1] The WCBC is significant in southwestern Virginia because it was an early woman's organization to push for political change and political power at a time when women had little or no power except by persuading men to change their minds.
In 1907 the WCBC held a "Great Fall Festival" in order to raise money to hire a city planner.
[8] "On December 7, 1906, more than 100 women turned out for an urgently-called meeting in Roanoke Virginia, to discuss matters of the utmost importance.
[10] In preparing the Melrose-Rugby Historic District in Roanoke, the effects of the Woman's Civic Betterment Club were appreciated.
[11] The Woman's Civic Betterment Club also worked with Nolen on the Riverland/Walnut Hills, Roanoke, Virginia neighborhood in promoting sanitation and overcrowding.
At the turn of the century, Riverland housed railway workers and their families, and contributed to overcrowding and unhealthy tenement conditions.
[12] Under contract, Nolen focused on the development of a civic center, which led to the construction of the Beaux-Arts style Municipal Building in 1915.
He also made provisions for paved streets with gutters, sewage systems and other sanitation improvements in the residential neighborhoods.
[14] During his talk, J. Horace McFarland, president of the American Civic Improvement Association, criticized several areas of Roanoke.
The WCBC paid other speakers to come, including bacteriologists who criticized Roanoke's potential for typhoid, tuberculosis and polluted milk.
"Possibly believing they were presenting an insurmountable hurdle, council members told Butler that if she could raise $30,000, the city would contribute the rest.
Yet, within only a few years the citizens of Roanoke as seen marked improvement in the acquisition of land for public parks; school facilities; better city sanitation; abatement of dust and dirt nuisances on the streets.