The club movement: the Literary Club, the Progress Club, and their circle

1889 – 1970

The foundings: the Private Clubs section carries Timothy Howard's 1907 account of the clubwomen's institutions at the size he gave them, and this entry stands on it and extends the course. The Woman's Literary Club was organized in April 1889 by twenty-seven named women — Anna Thrush Fassett, Louise Taylor, Ellen Wade Colfax, Ada M. Studebaker, Harriet C. Studebaker, and Catherine E. Esmay among them. The Progress Club followed on 13 May 1895, incorporated on 27 May 1895, with Catherine C. Esmay its first president and Mary Stull Studebaker among its vice-presidents; it joined the General Federation of Women's Clubs in December 1895 and the Indiana Federation of Clubs in March 1900. Howard judged it "one of the largest and most influential organizations of its class in the state," its program running to "history, literature, current events, art, philanthropy and civics, domestic science and music." Around the two great clubs Howard names the circle at roster size: the Impromptu Club, the Mothers' Club, the Thursday Club, the Wednesday Club. One conflict stands open in the library's own catalogue: the St. Joseph County Public Library holds a "Women's Literary Club Centennial Booklet" dated 1874–1974, against Howard's contemporary 1889 founding for the club; the booklet was not read for this record, and the difference is carried unresolved.

The Progress Club at work: the club's public record is the record of a body that treated the city as its business decades before its members could vote in it. Its kindergarten campaign of the mid-1890s — and Esmay's school-board seat, the first public office held by a South Bend woman — stand in the firsts entry above. The 1921 city directory finds the club at its documented maturity: rooms in Melville Hall at 212 South Lafayette Street, a membership of 225, and a full slate of officers — Mrs. Richard Elbel president; Mrs. H. P. Dunnahoo, Mrs. E. P. Chapin, and Ella Rieman vice-presidents; Mrs. T. J. Walsh treasurer; Mrs. L. E. Greenan recording secretary; Sarah Lyon corresponding secretary — with a board meeting the first Thursday of each month. In the spring of 1920 the club buried its founder: "Catherine Esmay Claimed By Death," the Tribune headlined on 2 April 1920, and on 23 April the News-Times carried the club's formal tribute to her memory. Six weeks later, on 11 June 1920, the club celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary at the South Bend Country Club. The club's voice was still being raised in the city's affairs a generation later: in the 1950s it was the Progress Club that drew public attention to the school corporation's practice of confining its Black teachers to a single school, at a meeting of the St. Joseph County Council of Churches attended by more than four hundred fifty people. The women's service-club line reaches the modern record in the city's own minutes once more, in 1970, when the Pilot Club of South Bend, a women's service club, took a candy-sale permit from the Board of Public Works for 17 October 1970.

The South Bend Woman's Club: beside the literary clubs stood the generalist's organization. The 1921 directory houses the South Bend Woman's Club at 224 in the J.M.S. Building, and the city's magazine for July 1920 — South Bend Today, in a survey headed "Women's Clubs of the City" — shows it at federation work: its Americanization program was the Indiana Federation's exhibit of the work "truly living and carrying on the spirit of Americanization," with Mrs. Walter K. Sherman of the club carrying the federation's editorial voice on the subject. The same July 1920 survey records the texture of the club year across the city's women's organizations — department meetings, story contests entered by women writers, the Progress Club's double quartette, and Miss Addie Van den Bosch entertaining the Nature Study department at her home at Nutwood — the social machinery by which the clubwomen's public influence was organized, printed by the city's own press as a matter of civic record.

Sources:

1. Timothy E. Howard, A History of St. Joseph County, Indiana, Vol. I (1907), pp. 459–460, as carried in the Private Clubs section — the Literary Club of April 1889 and its twenty-seven founders; the Progress Club of May 1895, its officers and standing; the Impromptu, Mothers', Thursday, and Wednesday clubs.
2. Polk's South Bend City Directory, 1921 — the Progress Club's organization and incorporation dates (13 and 27 May 1895), its General Federation admission (December 1895) and Indiana Federation admission (March 1900), its Melville Hall rooms, membership of 225, and its 1921 officers; the South Bend Woman's Club at 224 J.M.S. Building.
3. South Bend Today, July 1920, "Women's Clubs of the City" (Michiana Memory, St. Joseph County Public Library) — the Woman's Club's Americanization work and Mrs. Sherman's federation editorial; the Progress Club's twenty-fifth anniversary, 11 June 1920; the club-year record of departments and meetings.
4. South Bend Tribune, 2 April 1920, and South Bend News-Times, 23 April 1920 (titles as catalogued by the IU South Bend Archives) — the death of Catherine Esmay and the Progress Club's published tribute to her memory.
5. IU South Bend, African American Landmark Tour, Linden School chapter — the Progress Club in the 1950s, drawing attention to the segregation of the city's Black teachers at the Council of Churches meeting.
6. City of South Bend, Board of Public Works minutes, 1970, as carried in the Private Clubs section — the Pilot Club of South Bend's candy-sale permit, 17 October 1970.
7. St. Joseph County Public Library, Local & Family History Services catalogue — the Women's Literary Club Centennial Booklet, 1874–1974, carried here as an unresolved conflict with Howard's 1889.