The Saturday Evening Girls club (1899-1969) was a
Progressive Era
The Progressive Era (late 1890s – late 1910s) was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States focused on defeating corruption, monopoly, waste and inefficiency. The main themes ended during Am ...
reading group for young
immigrant women in Boston's
North End. The club hosted educational discussions and lectures as well as social events, published a newspaper called the ''S. E. G. News'', and operated the acclaimed
Paul Revere Pottery. Financed by philanthropist
Helen Storrow
Helen Osborne Storrow (September 22, 1864 – November 12, 1944) was a prominent American philanthropist, early Girl Scout leader, and chair of the World Committee of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) for eight years ...
and run by librarian
Edith Guerrier and her partner, artist Edith Brown, the club originated at the
North Bennet Street Industrial School (NBSIS), a community charity building that provided educational opportunities and vocational training. Meetings were later held at the Library Club House at 18 Hull Street. Storrow also provided a house in
Gloucester, Massachusetts, where club members could vacation in the summer.
Mission
The purpose of the club was to provide intellectual and social stimulation for the young working-class women of the North End, most of whom were from Italian Catholic or Eastern European Jewish immigrant families. At the time, the North End was an overcrowded tenement neighborhood with the highest child mortality rate in the city. Like many other clubs and charity organizations of the era, those at NBSIS were designed to Americanize young people by exposing them to middle-class
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
In the United States, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants or WASPs are an ethnoreligious group who are the white, upper-class, American Protestant historical elite, typically of British descent. WASPs dominated American society, culture, and polit ...
culture. Additionally, Guerrier was instructed to "draw these girls in, from the perils of the street"; that is, to keep them away from saloons, dance halls, and other amusements which were seen as unsavory and leading to prostitution. In reality, most Jewish and Italian immigrant girls in those days were closely watched over by their families and forbidden to leave the house at night without a chaperone.
History
Founding
In 1899, a young art student named Edith Guerrier applied for a position in the day nursery at the North Bennet Street Industrial School. She approached the school's founder, Helen Storrow, with a letter of introduction from her uncle, William Garrison, Jr., who was an old friend of Guerrier's father. Soon afterwards, Guerrier was tasked with maintaining the school's reading room, officially known as "Station W" of the
Boston Public Library
The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also the Library for the Commonwealth (formerly ''library of last recourse'') of the Commonwea ...
. Her story-hour quickly gained immense popularity with young women at the school, forming the foundation of what in 1901 became the Saturday Evening Girls' Club (S.E.G.).
Activities
The multiple reading groups that Guerrier led were organized and named after the day of the week the women met; the Saturday Evening Girls consisted mostly of young women with jobs or family obligations that kept them busy the rest of the week. Through activities and group discussions, the S.E.G. exposed the women to an array of experiences across religious, language, and ethnic divides. Weekly meetings covered subjects such as music, literature, art, economics, and job opportunities. Often, prominent members of the Boston community would attend the S.E.G. meetings and give lectures or lead group discussions on historical or contemporary issues. Speakers included a variety of professionals, academics, religious leaders, activists, artists, and writers. The club also organized parties, plays, folk-dancing recitals, and concerts by local performers. Around 1906, Storrow bought a 14-bedroom house on
Wingaersheek Beach in West Gloucester, Massachusetts, as a summer camp for club members. Storrow paid for a director and an assistant, and the members paid most of their own expenses.
In addition to the funding from Helen Storrow, the club depended on volunteer work and donations. To raise funds, club members ran a restaurant and put on plays and other performances. In 1910 they staged a production of ''
The Merchant of Venice
''The Merchant of Venice'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock.
Although classified as ...
'' at the home of
Isabella Stewart Gardner
Isabella Stewart Gardner (April 14, 1840 – July 17, 1924) was a leading American art collector, philanthropist, and patron of the arts. She founded the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.
Gardner possessed an energetic intellectual cu ...
. S. E. G. Club members contributed financially to the clubs for the younger women and girls, as well as mentoring them. Each member was also expected to contribute an hour of service each week to the clubhouse. In 1914, busy with other projects, Storrow withdrew her support for the library clubs, and the Saturday Evening Girls took over the responsibility. The clubs were moved to a space in the new North End branch of the library.
Involvement in the S.E.G. provided the space to advance women's education in a manner that worked outside of traditional education methods, exposing the young women to opportunities for socializing without fear of provocation for being female, or for belonging to a specific religious group or ethnicity. The women participating in S.E.G. stand out from turn-of-the-century women at large, as S.E.G.'s members pursued higher education at a significantly higher rate than the native-born women surrounding them.
Notable speakers
*
Cyrus E. Dallin
*
Paul Revere Frothingham
*
Edward Everett Hale
Edward Everett Hale (April 3, 1822 – June 10, 1909) was an American author, historian, and Unitarian minister, best known for his writings such as " The Man Without a Country", published in '' Atlantic Monthly'', in support of the Union ...
*
Heloise Hersey Heloise Edwina Hersey (1855-1933) was an American scholar of Anglo-Saxon language and literature. A graduate of Vassar College and the first female professor of Anglo-Saxon studies in the United States, she was appointed at Smith College in 1878.
...
*
Charles Eliot Norton
Charles Eliot Norton (November 16, 1827 – October 21, 1908) was an American author, social critic, and Harvard professor of art based in New England. He was a progressive social reformer and a liberal activist whom many of his contemporaries c ...
*
Vida Dutton Scudder
Julia Vida Dutton Scudder (1861–1954) was an American educator, writer, and welfare activist in the social gospel movement.
Early life
She was born in Madurai, India, on December 15, 1861, the only child of David Coit Scudder (of the Scudder ...
*
James J. Storrow
*
Edmund von Mach
The S. E. G. News
The club published a newspaper, the ''S. E. G. News'', from 1912 to 1917. The editor in chief was
Fanny Goldstein (May 15, 1895 - December 26, 1961), a Russian immigrant who had left school to go to work at 13. Goldstein continued her education part-time, taking evening classes at Simmons College (now
Simmons University
Simmons University (previously Simmons College) is a private university in Boston, Massachusetts. It was established in 1899 by clothing manufacturer John Simmons. In 2018, it reorganized its structure and changed its name to a university. Its ...
),
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with ...
, and
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
. She went on to head the
West End branch of the Boston Public Library, where she worked with noted journalist and librarian
George Washington Forbes. Goldstein conceived the idea for
Jewish Book Week
Jewish Book Week is a literary festival in London, held annually in February and March, that explores Jewish literature, ideas and culture. The festival was founded in 1952 and since 2012 it has been presented at Kings Place. It is organised by t ...
in Boston in the 1920s; her idea was later adopted by Jewish communities across the country.
The ''S. E. G. News'' printed club announcements, editorials (such as "Dire Dress" by Fanny Goldstein), informational articles (such as "Telegraphy as a Vocation for Women" by Sarah Wolk), personal reminiscences (such as "Fifteen Years Later" by Frank Rizzo), poetry by
Charlotte Perkins Stetson and
Evelyn Underhill
Evelyn Underhill (6 December 1875 – 15 June 1941) was an English Anglo-Catholic writer and pacifist known for her numerous works on religion and spiritual practice, in particular Christian mysticism. Her best-known is ''Mysticism'', published ...
, children's plays by Edith Guerrier, book reviews, lists of recommended magazine articles, and advertisements for local businesses such as
Hood's Milk. Contemporary issues such as
Zionism
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
and
preparedness
Preparedness is a research-based set of actions that are taken as precautionary measures in the face of potential disasters. Preparedness is an important quality in achieving goals and in avoiding and mitigating negative outcomes.
There are differ ...
for war were also addressed. Newsletters such as the ''S. E. G. News'' made a small but significant contribution to the education of their readers.
The Paul Revere Pottery
In 1908, Edith Guerrier and Edith Brown, with financial help from Helen Storrow, started a small pottery in the cellar of their home in
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
Chestnut Hill is an affluent New England village located west of downtown Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Like all Massachusetts villages, Chestnut Hill is located within one or more incorporated municipal entities. It is located partia ...
. Soon afterwards it was moved to the basement of the Library Club House at 18 Hull Street. It was named the Paul Revere Pottery because of its proximity to the
Old North Church
Old North Church (officially, Christ Church in the City of Boston), at 193 Salem Street, in the North End, Boston, is the location from which the famous "One if by land, two if by sea" signal is said to have been sent. This phrase is related ...
, where friends of
Paul Revere
Paul Revere (; December 21, 1734 O.S. (January 1, 1735 N.S.)May 10, 1818) was an American silversmith, engraver, early industrialist, Sons of Liberty member, and Patriot and Founding Father. He is best known for his midnight ride to a ...
had famously hung two lanterns to signal to him that the British were coming. In 1915 it moved to the Aberdeen section of Boston's
Brighton neighborhood. In 1916, it was incorporated as the Paul Revere Pottery Company.
The pottery was more than an arts and crafts project designed to keep young women off the streets; it provided them with decent jobs. Working conditions at the pottery were better than the women could have expected elsewhere: they worked an eight-hour day and received a fair wage, daily hot lunches, and a yearly paid vacation. The pottery flourished for several decades, garnering national and international recognition through features in magazines, journals, and newsletters. It closed its doors in 1942. Paul Revere wares are now valuable collectors' items.
Disbandment
Although the club's membership began to dwindle after
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the Saturday Evening Girls continued to meet on an irregular basis until the club was dissolved in 1969.
Papers and photographs pertaining to the club were collected by Barbara Maysles Kramer and are available in the Joseph P. Healey Library,
University of Massachusetts Boston
The University of Massachusetts Boston (stylized as UMass Boston) is a public research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the only public research university in Boston and the third-largest campus in the five-campus University of Massa ...
. 18 Hull Street, formerly the Library Club House, is a site on the
Boston Women's Heritage Trail
The Boston Women's Heritage Trail is a series of walking tours in Boston, Massachusetts, leading past sites important to Boston women's history. The tours wind through several neighborhoods, including the Back Bay and Beacon Hill, commemorating w ...
.
See also
*
North Bennet Street School
North Bennet Street School (NBSS) is a private vocational school in Boston, Massachusetts. NBSS offers nine full-time programs, including bookbinding, cabinet and furniture making, carpentry, jewelry making and repair, locksmithing and security te ...
*
History of Italian Americans in Boston
Not all of the 5 million Italians who immigrated to the United States between 1820 and 1978 came through Ellis Island. Many came through other ports, including the Port of Boston. Exactly how many stayed in Boston is not known, but it was enough ...
*
Settlement movement
The settlement movement was a reformist social movement that began in the 1880s and peaked around the 1920s in United Kingdom and the United States. Its goal was to bring the rich and the poor of society together in both physical proximity and s ...
*
Arts and Crafts movement
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Further reading
*
*
*
*
* {{cite web , website=Internet Archive , title=S. E. G. News, 1952 , url=https://archive.org/details/segnews1952satu
Fiction
*
The Saturday Evening Girls Club' by Jane Healey (Lake Union Publishing, 2017) tells the story of four best friends coming of age in the North End at the turn of the 20th century. The women are young, working-class, Italian and Jewish immigrants whose lives are changed by the Saturday Evening Girls Club. Helen Storrow, Edith Guerrier, Fanny Goldstein, and other actual people involved in the club make occasional appearances in the novel.
*
The Boston Girl' by
Anita Diamant
Anita Diamant (born June 27, 1951) is an American author of fiction and non-fiction books."Anita Diamant." ''Contemporary Authors Online''. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2015. Retrieved via ''Biography in Context'' database, 2017-09-22. She has ...
(Scribner, 2014) is a novel set in Boston in the early 20th century; several characters belong to the Saturday Evening Girls club (referred to in the novel as the Saturday Club) and work in the pottery.
*
Under Copp's Hill' by
Katherine Ayres (Open Road Media, 2014), part of the
American Girl History Mysteries series, is set in Boston's North End in 1908 and features Edith Guerrier's "library club."
External Links
Records of the Saturday Evening Girls, 1915-1991.http://radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library Schlesinger Library], Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
North End, Boston
Women's clubs in the United States
Defunct clubs and societies of the United States
Progressive Era in the United States
1899 in women's history
History of women in Massachusetts
Women in Boston