Note 153 — Chapter XXXI

A few ladies met at the house of Dr. Harriot K. Hunt to consider a plan for organization. Its avowed object was "to supply the daily increasing need of a great central resting place, for the comfort and convenience of those who may wish to unite with us, and ultimately become a center for united and organized social thought and action." Its first president was Caroline M. Severance. On the executive board were the names of Julia Ward Howe, Ednah D. Cheney, Lucy Goddard, Harriet M. Pitnam, Jane Alexander, Abby W. May, and many others who have since become well known. This club held its first meetings in private houses, but it has for several years occupied spacious club rooms on Park street in Boston. Julia Ward Howe is its president. The club has its own historian, and when this official gives the result of her researches to the public, there will be seen how many projects for the elevation of women and the improvement of social life have had their inception in the brains of those who assemble in the parlors of the New England Woman's Club. In 1874, it projected the movement by which women were first elected on the school committee of Boston, and also prepared the petition to be sent to the Massachusetts legislature of 1879, the result of which was the passage of the law allowing women to vote for school committees. In the Woman's Journal for 1883 will be found a sketch of this club.