by Barbara Rimkunas
This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, March 26, 2021.
In 1947, after the dust of the second world war had settled, the social climate encouraged women to leave the workforce and ‘return to the home.’ Problem was, a lot of women did not want that life. Women worked for the same reasons’ men worked – they needed the paycheck. And, like men, most women wanted purposeful work that matched their interests and skills. To support one another in this endeavor, the Exeter Business and Professional Women’s Club was organized and chartered.
The women of Exeter were not alone, their club joined others from around the country as part of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs. The larger organization was founded in 1919 by Lena Madesin Phillips, a lawyer from Nicholasville, Kentucky. The mobilization of women workers during the first world war had encouraged more women to enter the business world. Through her advocacy with the YWCA, Phillips found that women were eager to work outside of the home and craved the type of networking men had enjoyed through their club activities.
In Exeter, the group was organized by Marion Frame, a legal secretary and Maud Richards, a caterer. With an initial membership of 43 members, the Exeter group was granted a charter in 1948 at a meeting of the Southern District NH Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, held at the Exeter Inn.
Club meetings were held monthly and were a mixture of advocacy, political education, socializing and networking. A typical meeting might include reports from the various committees including membership, program, legislation, finance, education and vocation, public affairs, hospitality, recreation, health and safety, news service and radio, and international affairs. Speakers might include a presentation by the League of Women Voters or the Red Cross. Ruth Stimson, a member, and demonstrator for the UNH Cooperative Extension, gave a lecture in early 1951 on civil defense encouraging members to clear out attics and other home rubbish areas to reduce the risk of fire hazards. You know, just in case the Soviet Union dropped the bomb we would want fewer attic fires.
They raised funds through membership dues and some creative fundraising events, such as a “money doll” raffle– a stuffed doll dressed in 25 one-dollar bills. They held a “telephone card party” wherein card parties were held in individual homes with the bidding results relayed from one location to another through a phone tree (almost like an earlier version of a Zoom meeting). An annual fashion show, which they called a “style show” was held at the high school gym to raise money. Funds were generously donated to the polio fund, the public library, the Girl Scouts, Exeter Hospital. Each member, on her own, was required to raise $2.00 and report back at the annual meeting – in verse. This charming habit of public poetry, which was quite popular with the membership, may have been borrowed from the U.S. Navy’s longstanding tradition of writing the New Years deck log in verse. The meeting records of the organization, sadly, only include references to the reports and not transcripts.
The national club, of which the local group was a member, held strong ties to the United Nations. International affairs and political topics were freely discussed. With the acceptance of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, written by a committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, the members of the Business and Professional Women’s Club closely followed the proposed Equal Rights Amendment. In 1951, the ERA was discussed at the July meeting, concluding: “each member should write on September 27th to Congress about this.” Even in the 1950s it was obvious that no matter how many rights were granted through legal action, without equal protection written into the Constitution, these could be overturned at any time. Speakers discussed divorce laws, child custody, credit and contract negotiation – a wide variety of issues that mattered to women who could legally be denied basic rights based only on their sex.
The occupations of the club members are a snapshot of the types of jobs women were encouraged to seek in the mid-century. They leaned heavily on professional secretaries, stenographers, librarians, teachers, nurses, and salesclerks with just a smattering of physicians, insurance & real estate agents, postmistresses and business owners. Contrary to the stereotype, many of the members were married but there were also widows and single women who must have appreciated belonging to an organization that didn’t define them by a husband’s identity.
In 1987, the group had succeeded long enough to celebrate its 40th anniversary. But with that success came a decline in membership. The working women of the 1980s were now able to join networking organizations like the Lion’s and Rotary Club. The final meeting, in 1988, was held to decide final disbursement of the treasury. Generous donations were made to the Exeter Hospital general fund, the Exeter Fire Department ambulance fund, Exeter Area schools resource room and the Exeter Historical Society. The records of this remarkable club became part of the historical society collections in 2008.
Barbara Rimkunas is curator of the Exeter Historical Society. Support the Exeter Historical Society by becoming a member! Join online at: www.exeterhistory.org
Image: Exeter News-Letter October 2, 1958: Officers and members of the Exeter Club spotlight women who work by installing roadside emblem sign of the National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs. L-R: Alice Gaudette, treasurer; Ella Higgins, v-president; Helen Skolfield, president; Lucille Berry, recording secretary, Nellie Meras, publicity.