Women of

California

CHAPTER XXIII.

ACTIVITY AND INFLUENCE OF WOMEN'S CLUBS IN SOLANO COUNTY.
By Mrs. Duncan S. Robinson*

        The influence of women in the affairs of community and nation is so general now, that it is difficult to believe that within a comparatively short period of years, all this has come to pass. It was not until the construction period following the Civil war that, with cultural aims solely, women's clubs arose, and it has been only in the last twenty years that women began to acquire a need for the furtherance of their broadened work and aims, a "federation" of clubs arose.
        These two features the individual club and federation of clubs are descriptive of the organized activity of the women of Solano County, though the date of the organization of the first women's club must remain rather indefinite, and be placed at a later date than the '80s. Social and study groups were undoubtedly formed as the communities themselves grew. The available data fixes the clubs in existence today, all of origin less than twenty-five years ago, though other organizations may have preceded them. The present clubs of Vallejo and Benicia show dates of very recent organization but these towns likely had the earliest women's clubs of the county. The Dixon Women's Improvement Club, founded 1902, Vacaville Saturday Club, 1909, Rio Vista Women's Improvement Club, 1912, Suisun Wednesday Club, 1911, the oldest clubs in the membership of the Solano County Federation of Women's Clubs, indicate the initial activity of women's clubs in general to have been during the first decade of the twentieth century.
* Mrs. Robinson is Past President Solano County Federation of Women's Clubs; Second Vice-President, San Francisco District Federation of Women's Clubs.

        The Solano County Federation of Women's Clubs was organized in September, 1920, at a meeting held in Rio Vista, by invitation of the Women's Improvement Club of Rio Vista and its president, Mrs. J. E. Meredith. Mrs. F. A. Steiger and Mrs. Meredith, later chosen president and vice-president of the new organization, were most active in its formation and Mrs. Finlay Cook of San Francisco was the formal representative of the California Federation of Women's Clubs upon that occasion. This federation has been of great significance to the county in general. The women of each community have not only been the means of promoting a friendlier feeling and understanding among the various communities, but they have addressed themselves unselfishly and unstintingly to the progress and welfare of community and county.
        The county organization, at the very outset, interested itself in the problems centering about child welfare. The broad vision of Mrs. Steiger was responsible for the recognition of a need of a children's ward in the county hospital, and the County Board of Supervisors has cooperated with the clubwomen of the county at each step toward the realization of this project. The memory of the late Supervisor, H. J. Widenman, who was especially in sympathy with the plan, has been honored, and the ward designated as the Widen-man Health Center. The county presidents succeeding Mrs. Steiger---Mrs. A. P. Finan, Mrs. D. S. Robinson and Miss Ann Chubb, County Child Welfare Chairmen Mrs. Finan, Mrs. Morgan Jones, Miss Elnor Rush, and many individuals besides the members of the women's clubs have supported the proposed children's ward with enthusiasm and energy and the contract, at the present writing, is to be let for a $15,000 unit, which is as perfectly planned as is modernly possible.
        A splendid child welfare work is done in the various communities, notably Suisun, Fairfield and Vallejo. Almost every town has a community nurse, due to the efforts of the women's organization of that town, and in many cases the expense of this is shared by the club. Both the Federation of Women's Clubs and the Parent-Teacher Association do excellent work in furthering the health and educational opportunities of the schools, and a fine example of cooperation is exemplified in the communities where these and other women's organizations work together for the good of the whole.
        Other women's organizations which do a splendid work in the county or community are the Women's Christian Temperance Union units, the Housewives' League and the former League of Women Voters, while the work of supervision of the county Home Demonstration Agent, Miss Katherine Bennitt, along the lines of practical home-making problems, deserves special mention.
        A notable example of county cooperation among the women's clubs was the great educational Pageant, May 19, 1923, sponsored by the Women's Clubs, which was enacted by representatives from each community of the county, including the school children, and depicted the history of Solano County. This pageant, written by Miss Jean Davis, assisted by Miss Clara B. Dills, County Librarian, and Miss Anna Kyle, County Music Supervisor, original music being composed by Doctor Douglas Wright, was the occasion for a great county fete. It did a great deal to educate the people of Solano as to the history of their own county and state. The outgrowth of this pageant has been a renewed interest in county history and the gathering of material for a school history to be written by the History and Landmarks Department of the county federation. Another example of cooperation and county hospitality was that of the joint entertainment with the clubwomen of Napa County, at Vallejo, of the delegates of the Biennial convention who had assembled at Los Angeles from all over the United States. The impression made upon these visitors was inestimable and a further bond was cemented between Solano and its neighboring county, Napa.
        The county clubs have united on all things which have been for the betterment of the county in its every aspect and have done altruistic work, not only in this county but elsewhere especially for the ex-service men confined in the government hospitals, and, in generosity, have been second to no other county of the state.
Up to the present, the clubs have done a wonderful civic work and it would be impossible to enumerate the many things accomplished :
        The first community service of the Saturday Club of Vacaville was to have music put into the curriculum of the local schools; later a Carnegie library for Vacaville was obtained.
        The Dixon Women's Improvement Club has given a wonderful public park to the town as well as furthering the progress of the community in countless other ways.
        The Women's Improvement Club secured a public branch library for the town, a beautiful public park and three and one-half miles of trees along the highway leading to the town, and recently a community nurse was acquired through its efforts.
        Vallejo and Suisun clubwomen have done a wonderful child welfare work, conducting health centers which would do credit to the largest city and have engaged in many other lines of civic activity.
        The Wednesday Club of Suisun is incorporated and about to occupy its new $15,000 home. The Women's Improvement Club of Rio Vista, also incorporated, has purchased an $1,800 lot for a future club home, and almost every club in the county has a substantial clubhouse fund, which betokens permanence of women's clubs in the life of our county, as well as an indication of the pride, interest and energy of the women themselves, in their work.
        All the clubs have a high standard of programs which make them of educational and cultural value to the town as well as a social asset. The only purely self-centered piece of work of these clubs is that of acquiring club homes and even so, an asset wholly altruistic and unselfish, and it is their earnest wish to stand for all that is best in the life of the county.
 

document: Solano Womens Clubs
History of Solano County, California
Hunt, Marguerite.-Chicago: S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1926, 883 pgs.
Transcribed and submitted by  © Carolyn Feroben, Aug. 23, 2006