Monday I stumbled on a small collection of material from the University Women’s Club. The records caught my eye because of who was allowed to join: wives of faculty and administrative staff and single (but not married) faculty women. The membership paper I saw specifically said “single faculty women,” leading me to believe that married faculty women were on their own. I don’t know why, although I can certainly speculate about reasons: married women shouldn’t have been working in the first place and therefore weren’t included, married faculty women wouldn’t have time for a social club because all their time outside of work would be taken up in taking care of their husbands/families, married faculty women’s social lives would revolve around their husbands’ activities (so if he was a professor, too, she could join the club, but if not she would socialize with the wives of her husband’s co-workers), etc. Certainly sexism was (and some would argue still is) commonplace in the academy; this mindset was apparently reflected even in a social setting.
From the looks of the materials, the main function of the club was social, with activities including sewing, needlecraft, bowling, afternoon teas, singles and couples bridge, and a morning walking/jogging group. For the years I was looking at, the women also had French and Spanish conversation groups. The women also spent a lot of their time supporting the university library through fundraisers and volunteer work. The records themselves seem to be mostly from the 60s and 70s, and the collection includes an artifact: the official club gavel!
Accession # 1996-389, Collection: University Women’s Club, 2 boxes
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