Woman's Century Club in Seattle holds first meeting on July 31, 1891.

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On July 31, 1891, the founders of the Woman's Century Club hold their first meeting. The club is founded by suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt (1859-1947) and several other prominent women for the cultural and intellectual development of its members and for social service. The purpose is "to civilize" their rapidly developing city and to prepare women for full participation in the new century, which they call the "woman's century."

The founders, according to the club's current (2011) website, were:

Alice Jordan Blake (first woman to graduate in law from Yale)
Annie M. Brown (came from New York around Cape Horn in 1865)
Mary B. Cochrane
Alsora Hayner Fry
Sarah Kendall, M.D. (one of Seattle's first woman physicians)
Julia E. Kennedy (Seattle's first woman superintendent of schools, who hosted the club's first meeting at her home)
Elizabeth Mackintosh (arrived in Washington in 1865; served as enrolling clerk in the Washington Territorial Legislature in 1869, the first woman to occupy such a position in the country)
Harriet E. Parkhurst, pioneer and humanitarian
Celeste Langley Slauson (founder and director of the Seattle Conservatory of Arts)

Sources:
HistoryLink.org, The Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, "Women's Century Club" (by Mildred Andrews), www.historylink.org (accessed November 20, 2011); "History of the Woman's Century Club," Woman's Century Club website accessed November 20, 2011 (http://www.womanscenturyclub.org/history.html).
Note: This essay was corrected on July 17, 2005, and expanded on November 20, 2011.

By HistoryLink Staff, July 30, 2001

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Carrie Lane Chapman Catt (1859-1947), woman suffrage leader, ca. 1883
Courtesy State Historical Society of Wisconsin