THE IMPORTANCE OF WOMEN'S CLUBS

Women's clubs became important in the 1800s when middle and upper class women were freed from many of their domestic tasks by industrialization.

Women weren't then invited into the professions, says Dr. Bonnie Stepenoff, so they began doing charity work. The medical help of women was essential during the Civil War, she said.

Stepenoff said women realized that charity could go only so far, so they became involved in reform movements.

"A lot of historians say the first mass women's movement was the temperance movement," says Stepenoff, head of the Historic Preservation Program at Southeast. She also teaches a women's studies course at the university.

Women also became involved in helping poor people, doing what is considered social work today.

Women's clubs helped change women's place in society, Stepenoff says. "Women learned how to associate with each other, how to work together, and how to become politically involved."

Within that context, the suffrage movement was inevitable.

Other women worked through their churches. They often were the backbone of the church and had an impact on the ministers.

"They had clout," Stepenoff said. "The minister depended on them for his job."

Because the Victorian ideal put men in charge of business and politics while women guided the household, women became the guardians of morality, Stepenoff said.

"Some people think women dictated the morals of the Victorian era," she said. "They taught those values to their children and husbands, too."