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8.C. - Page 16 of 54 <br />William Kostura, Historic Resource Evaluation of the Redwood City Woman Club <br />wrote of "the weakness and weariness of that which is isolated." The club's <br />Corresponding Secretary, Blanche Morse, added "Gradually it will be discovered that <br />`home' and `solitary confinement' are not synonymous." <br />Both women also wrote about women's expanding role in society, and how club life <br />would facilitate such expansion. Fairchild wrote "Men have looked on and wondered; <br />they have awakened to the knowledge that there is in woman possibilities and potencies <br />of which they had not dreamed.... Through societies and federated club life, the women <br />of today are better educated than their mothers, more self-sustaining, more poised, and <br />more in harmony with the instincts of all that concerns humanity. The doors of greater <br />opportunities have opened to them.... They will accomplish more in the future. The <br />magnitude of their influence will mean radical reconstruction of social and national <br />ideas." Observing that women now have "equal" educational opportunities, Morse <br />believed that knowing leads to acting; "Thinking finds its necessary expression in doing." <br />Both individually and through organizations (such as clubs) women are "busy becoming <br />enlightened upon municipal, state, national, and world conditions and problems." <br />Through club activity, women "are taking no insignificant part in community affairs, <br />shaping policy through moulding of public opinion." Not only that, but holding <br />"municipal positions" and doing "practical work" in sanitation, recreation grounds, <br />education of children, and general welfare. Morse summed up "This is the significance <br />of the women's club movement: The banding together of women to make real their <br />ideals." <br />They acknowledged resistance to all this. The main concern they faced was that if <br />women got out of the home to congregate among themselves, they would neglect their <br />duties as housewives and mothers and that home life would be adversely affected. <br />Fairchild asked, "What about the home during this evolution of womankind? Can <br />woman do both house work and club duties and do them well?" She hastened to assure, <br />"Yes, true womanliness is not in danger, and the sacred duties of wife and mother will be <br />all the more honorably performed. The two will not conflict." Morse added "Ultimately <br />the fear that women's club life means the disintegration of the home will be allayed." <br />And had there been progress in such changing of attitudes? She would only go this far: <br />"We have almost ceased to be a joke." <br />California Federation of Women's Clubs <br />Within four months of their founding, the Redwood City Woman's Club affiliated with a <br />statewide organization, the California Federation of Women's Clubs. This organization <br />was just what the name implies, an affiliation of many women's organizations in the <br />state. It was founded in 1900 with forty clubs representing 6,000 women. Among its <br />activities was endorsing the Child Labor Law (enacted in 1906), supporting women's <br />suffrage (attained in California in 1911), and urging affiliates to financially support <br />women seeking higher education. The federation sent two representatives to attend the <br />0 <br />540 <br />