Posted on by Ellen Roussel

Shortchanging the Janitress

Last week, Katie and Clara both discussed the philanthropy efforts, or lack thereof, of the Woman’s Literary Club of Baltimore. Since I have currently been transcribing the formation and early establishment of the Club, it was interesting and insightful for me to read their thoughts on the generosity of the Club in later years and as evident (or not) through the programs.

It wasn’t until I made my way into the second season of the Club’s existence that I began seeing any mention of philanthropy in the minutes. Around the November 1891 entries, the President puts in the motion to raise money for the janitress of the Academy of Sciences building who recently lost most of her belongings in a fire. The women second and third the motion, and agree to inquire whether or not she can be helped.

Several meetings later, the President again announces that a purse will be collected for the janitress to which the ladies can contribute if they so desire. Almost within the same breath it seems, the President moves on to more pressing announcements of upcoming classes. Eventually, we make our way to December 1891, where it is reported that $16.00 was raised for the janitress, which falls short of the $25.00 goal. Then, the women speculate on whether they should buy the janitress a sewing machine to replace the one she lost in the fire, which would require them to supplement the addition funds from their own budget, or, if they should just give her the $16.

The women then debate whether they should just give her the money because it probably would not be “judiciously spent” or if they should buy the “very-useful” sewing machine, and possibly risk losing $9 from their ample funds. After all, as the women say, they are not a philanthropy club and “must be just before [they] are generous.”

It was eventually decided that a decision of this gravity (whether or not to help a woman in need) was too much of a mature consideration for that meeting, so they postponed the decision until a later time.

I have not yet reached the meeting where the decision is resolved, but let me tell you, I am truly waiting with baited breath to see what kind of convoluted decision they make in regards to someone a little less fortunate than them.

Posted on by Ellen Roussel

Club and their associations

I have completed transcribing the minutes from the first year and a half of the Woman’s Literary Club, and have been given a detailed view of the inner workings of the Club as they try to establish themselves and their methods of operating as a unit. What I do not have a good perspective on, however, is the Club as an external piece; as in, how does the Club operate within Baltimore, and how does it compare to other women’s groups during this time.

In the March 31st Board Meeting minutes, the President made the suggestion that the Club rent a house, and open it up to lodgers and the neighborhood when Club meetings were not in session. To this thought, some of the women thought that other women’s groups in Baltimore could unite with them in establishing a house that would benefit them all. This seems to suggest the Club wished to associate with other women’s societies in Baltimore.

Looking at other minutes, some of the ladies suggested that women college graduates in the city might be lonely, and that a list of their names should be kept for individuals within the Club to contact them should they feel so inclined. This seems to be an example of when the Club does not want to associate with women who are not linked to another society. I don’t know if this is because it could be risky for the reputation of the Club to associate with these non-Club women, or what, but I am interested to see the development of how the Club asserts themselves within Baltimore and how they interact with other women not in the Club.

Posted on by Katie Kazmierski

Motives behind giving

This past week, I continued working on transcribing the Board of Management meeting minutes from 1908 onwards. A lot caught my interest this week, and I found myself footnoting things with my own comments. I think I’ll write about these in a later post, but for right now, Clara’s post about philanthropy actually got me thinking about the character of the ladies of the Club– or the character they seemed to have wished to portray. As Clara puts it, they almost seemed “more concerned with crafting the image of the spirit of giving rather than the spirit itself.”

While I haven’t stumbled upon in my share of the minutes any talk of philanthropy (which, I guess, serves to prove Clara’s point even more) yet, when I read Clara’s post a particular point in the minutes stood out in my mind.

Basically, in February of 1910 a valued member of the Club, Mrs. Tait, decided to resign her membership after the death of her husband. As a parting gift to show her appreciation of the Club and the women in it, she offers them a bust of Sidney Lanier, an author and poet (who just so happened to also serve in the Confederate army). After some deliberation, the Board agrees that Tait must not know how expensive the bust is, as it’s estimated to be $25, (roughly $610 today!) so they offer to pay for it. Mrs. Tait happily accepts the Board’s offer, and the matter’s closed.

A month later in March, Mrs. Tait dies. Someone suggests that the Club send flowers to her funeral as a tribute, and after some very calculated deliberation on what is “acceptable”, it was deemed “unsuitable” to do this for “one no longer a member”. This is a month after Mrs. Wrenshall writes a lengthy poem to honor another deceased past member, Mrs. Whitney, mind you. But here’s the kicker:

It was recalled that the Board had very lately done a graceful action with regard to Mrs. Tait’s offer to give the Club her bust of Sidney Lanier,–by accepting it only with the condition of returning to her its full value; and having done so while she was living, and able to express–though only verbally–her grateful appreciation of the favor,–a floral tribute was of little consequence now.

This is where Clara’s notion of, are they doing good deeds to be good or to be perceived as good? comes in. It seems like they spent more time sitting and weighing how their actions would make them look than what the actions actually meant. Their treatment of this situation just strikes me as very inauthentic–especially the notion of “oh, well, we did this for her a month ago, so we’re good”. It makes me wonder how much of what the Club does is chosen because of how it will make them appear, not necessarily for its intrinsic value.

Regardless, it boggles my mind that they’d deemed it inappropriate to give flowers to a past member because a) she wasn’t a current member and that somehow made her unworthy and b) they had just done her a favor anyway, so basically they’re off the hook.

Not to mention, Mrs. Tait had only resigned a month before her death. I guess once you resign, you’re good as dead to the Club–they might as well have just given her a bouquet in February.

Posted on by Clara Love

Programs, Revisited

This past week, I spent more time with the nine years’ worth of programs I transcribed during our first week, fitting the information into a spreadsheet in the hopes of making it all more easily sortable and searchable. As I reread all of the programs, I kept our conversations from our coffeeshop meeting in mind. One part of the Club that I paid special attention to this time around was the rise and development of their meetings and committee dedicated to philanthropy. By 1900, the most recent year of programs I transcribed, the Club had a ‘Committee on Modern Philanthropy,’ led by Mrs. John M. Carter, which would lead meetings consisting of a few talks and presentations. Sometimes, these meetings would have talks dedicated to what seem to be causes these women deemed worthy of donation in the spirit of philanthropy, such as a meeting in January of 1896 that contained presentations such as “Children of the State” and “For Suffering Humanity.” However, more frequent amongst the programs than these sorts of pointed topics are far more generalized talks and mentions of philanthropy, such as “Philanthropy–Its History and Methods,” “Some Phases of Philanthropy,” “The Higher Education of Women applied to Philanthropy,” and “What is Philanthropy?” to name a few from across the span of 1890-1900. Occasionally the Club would host debates, which I mentioned in my post from last week, that sometimes had to do with one of the aforementioned ‘worthy causes,’ however, as I believe we discussed at our meeting, these debates do not seem to result in any direct action, they just look like an intellectual exercise performed on the backs of people in need. This emphasis on philanthropy as a concept instead of an action with direction and effect on the world, to me, goes hand in hand with conversations and questions raised at our meeting–what were these elite women actually doing with their platform? It seems to me, having primarily interacted with programs that provide little detail or summary of the talks and presentations, that these women are more concerned with crafting the image of the spirit of giving rather than the spirit itself. Again, the higher frequency of discussion of philanthropy in general instead of how to best allocate any real funds to those in need just seems like an intellectual exercise, or even a brag, done at the expense of others these women would deem unworthy of Club membership. I’m curious as to how much of their funds from dues, etc., were used for actual philanthropy, since they have a whole committee dedicated to it but no programs mentioning neither donation nor public activism and/or volunteer work (or anything of the sort).