Collection Name
About
Media Items
County Federation of Women's
Clubs Doing Effective Work
The need of organized effort among club women bad been keenly felt and the knowledge that federated efforts bring about greater achievements the clubs of the county gathered together to launch a county federation, the first meeting being in September 1913, another in October of the same year, with Mrs. B. R. Henderson as head, the group being reorganised in January of 1915 with Miss Anne M. Sloan of Lonaconing as president and has since then flourished successfully.
The first annual meeting of this federated body was held in the San Toy Theatre in Lonaconing in May of 1915. The scope of activities mapped out by the federation through its clubs included education, prevention of tuberculosis, better roads, better schools, world peace and woman suffrage.
Since then, the working departments have included many more undertakings, particularly along welfare lines, citizenship and loan scholarships, the federation having assisted several students through this loan fund. Annual meetings are held in the different towns of the county, the meeting this year to be in this city in May. Mrs. Mark W. Roe is president.
Five Clubs Federated
The clubs included in the county federation and. the dates of their, organization are Cumberland Civic Club, 1909; Frostburg Civic Club, 1911 (now Frostburg Community Club); Lonaconing Civic Club, 1911; Barton Civic Club, 1914; Cumberland Council Jewish Women, 1923 (now disbanded) ; The Westernport-Luke Civic Club, 1913. The officers and members numbered the most active civic minded women in the community.
In 1924 the county group was admitted to membership in the Maryland federation and also to the district federation of which Mrs. William Claus is now president. The county also belongs to the general federation, the national head. The matter of abandoning the county body because of district affiliation has been broached and discussed at different times but the friendly contacts and community interests have been a bond uniting the different points of the county and the affiliation continues. In 1925 Mrs. J. W. Thomas, historian compiled and published a book containing much valuable history of the five clubs and other county groups.
Past presidents of the county federation have been Mrs. R. R. Henderson, Miss Anne Sloan, Miss Elizabeth Lowndes, Mrs. J. C. Cobey, Miss Margaretta Baker, Mrs. Avirett Thomas, Mrs. J. D. Roberts, Mrs. A. F. Smith, Mrs. W. Ralph Bretz, Mrs. Lloyd Shaw and Mrs. Mark W. Roe.
Note: The 1935 newspaper article states that the first annual meeting of the County Federation of Women's Clubs was held at the San-Toy Theatre in Lonaconing in 1915. The San-Toy was actually opened in the mid to late 1920s in a newly erected large brick building on Main Street. It is more likely that the meeting was held at the Evans Opera House, a multi-use facility which also showed silent movies. The Opera House building, which no longer stands, is depicted second from the left in the above early 1900s postcard view. It was also located on Main Street and owned by members of the same family who later erected the San-Toy. Postcard from the collection of Albert and Angela Feldstein.