Introduction to Club Section.
By Mrs. C. M. Severance, 'The Mother of Clubs."
Beloved Club-Women of the Country:
I rejoice heartily at being in touch with each and all of you, through this friendly introduction—you, who not having seen en masse, I love with sincere regard and affection.
I rejoice unceasingly in the ever-growing acceptance of your new opportunities and duties and in the superb outlook for your future. One of my favorite prophecies is that nothing is impossible to organized womanhood united in aim and effort.
My faith in woman became so great that my zeal took flame, and led me into the early effort toward making my enchanted dream come true on reaching my "Mecca" at Boston in 1855. I felt there best could such a dream come true—as Bronson Alcott assented on his visits to Cleveland, before our family removed to Boston—with the warning, however, that it would not be easy to gather the literary and progressive women from their various circled suburbs and churches. But the hope was still hidden in a warm corner of my heart, and after the Civil War had made many of these women friends and co-workers, who had served their country and homes as valiantly and at as great cost, in sending their husbands and sons to the chances of the battlefield, as their brothers!
The time then seemed ripe for the new venture of comradeship and service through organization. This comradeship and service had hitherto been exercised in efforts outside the home—only in the various sewing circles, Dorcas Societies, study classes and the like—covering some one single, definite purpose; but the idea of discussion and action upon the broader lines of civic interests vitally affecting the home, developed in the organization of the New England Woman's Club—the first
