Fortnightly Club
Location: Various, Currently Bryan Lathrop Mansion
Life Span: 1873-Present
Architect: TBD
Chicago Tribune, October 30, 1873
Chicago is fast becoming a city of ideas as well as practical achievements. Yesterday lectures were delivered during the day.—Mr. Alger’s essay before the Fortnightly Club, Prof. Haven on modern philosophy at the Christian Union, and the art lecture of Mrs. Doggett at the same place in the evening.
Mrs. K. N. Doggett gave the second of her very interesting course of lectures on art at the Christian Union last evening. Her subject was “Gothic Architecture,” and her lecture was enriched by a healthful collection of photographs and engravings. The unfavorable weather prevented a large attendance, but all present were richly repaid. The next lecture will be given in a fortnight..
Chicago Tribune, November 29, 1874
The Fortnightly Club gave their usual party at Standard Hall Friday even
Chicago Tribune, January 2, 1875
A ladies’ literary club, called “The Fortnightly.” whose members giing.ve tone to our best society. is one of the healthful factors of our better life. Mrs. Kate Newell Doggett, whose name is familiar to artists as the translator of Charles Blanc’s “Grammar of Painting.” is one of its enthusiastic and hard-working members. Her efforts for the promotion of literary and aesthetic caculturelture in Chicago are untiring.
The Standard Guide to Chicago For the Year 1892
Fortnightly Club of Chicago.-Meets Fridays at 2:30 p.M. at Art Institute, Michigan ave. and Van Buren st. Organized as a Woman’s Club in 1873 by Mrs. Kate Newell Doggett. Intended originally as a Womans’ Suffrage Organization, in which men and women should hold membership. Now devoted to social intercourse and intellectual culture. The work of this association is arranged on a carefully considered plan, which secures a thorough knowledge of the subject to be treated at each meeting. Each writer has a year in which to master the subject she is to present, and, as the writer of an essay remarked, “To prepare a paper for the Fortnightly is to add a good deal to your education, it matters not how liberal it may be.” The work of the club for the year is divided into two courses, the continuous course of study and the miscellaneous course. A committee of five members takes charge of the continuous course, which is represented by & paper at one of the two meetings that occur each month, and another committee of the same number directs the miscellaneous course, which presents a paper on the alternate day. At each of the meetings, which occur the first and third Fridays in the month, a well prepared and brilliant discussion under appointed leaders follows the paper. The discussion over, tea and cake are served and a delightful social hour closes the meeting, at which the visitor will observe that the strictness parliamentary forms, as well as the latest behest of fashion, are carefully obeyed. The membership of “The Fortnightly of Chicago” is limited to 175. The initiation fee and also the yearly dues are $12. The officers are: President, Mrs. Charles D. Hamill; first vice-president, Mrs. F. M. Wilmarth; second vice-president, Mrs. Otto H. Matz; corresponding secretary, Mrs. Elizabeth M. Stone; recording secretary, Mrs. F. H. Gardner; treasurer, Mrs. B. E. Ayer; directors, Mrs. Milward Adams, Mrs. H. G. Brainerd, Miss Nina G. Lunt, Mrs. J. J. Glessner, Mrs. John Alling, Mrs. James M. Hubbard.
Chicago Tribune, October 4, 1894
FORTNIGHTLY CLUB CELEBRATION.
Twenty-first Year Will Be Properly Inaugurated Today.
The Fortnightly club celebrates its twenty-first year tomorrow. Strictly speaking it did that in June, but the beginning of its twenty-first season will be inaugurated with a fitting celebration. The aims of the Fortnightly are for intellectual and social culture. Other clubs may deal with suffrage, charity work, and other questions and needs of the day, but the Fortnightly aims only at higher culture and literary attainment. The club is a center for the wealthiest and most intellectual set of women. The rooms are located on the top floor of the Potter Building, adjoining those of the Chicago Women’s club, and are extremely handsome. The furnishings and decorations have been under the charge of a committee composed of Mrs. John N. Jewett, Mrs. Franklin MacVeagh, and Mrs. B. F. Ayer. The audience hall is done in the various shades of green, the walls are colored a soft tint, and the frieze is of a paler shade. The paneling and pillars are all of ivory tint. A crimson velvet carpet brings out the delicate shading of the rest of the decorations and gives life and warmth to the rooms. The windows are decorated with an oblong stained glass, from which fall green silken draperies The walls are adorned with rare old prints and carvings. Ancient carved chairs and tables furnish the platform over which is hung a bas-relief portrait of Mrs. Kate Newell Doggett, founder of the club. A white wood fireplace in colonial design on either side of which is a deep circular niche with an Oriental lamp swinging over the recess, and its cushioned seat give a home-like air to the place. The tea-room is in yellow with a rare colonial sideboard. The library is in terra-cotta, and is filled with well-lined bookcases-surmounted with plaster casts of Greek heads The board and committee rooms and the pantry and cloak rooms are all well arranged and furnished. The club meets every other Friday and pursues a regular course of study throughout the year. This year it is expected a good deal of entertaining will be done. After the regular session, at which an essay is served. The membership has been heretofore limited to 175, but this year it has been increased to 200, which is the limit. There are two committees for the literary course, known as the “continuous” and the “miscellaneous,” these arranging topics for the members and assigning them during the summer, so that there may be abundant time for preparation. No member is exempt from an essay—that is a guerdon of membership. This year, Mrs. Frances Hale Gardiner is Chairman of the ” continuous ” committee so named because it aims to follow a systematic course of literature. It began twenty-one years ago with Homer, and this coming season will deal with the romantic literature of this century—the great reviews and reviewers, the Wordsworth-Shelley controversy, Goethe’s “Faust,” John Keats, Alfred de Musset, Edgar Allan, Poe and Sydney Smith< and his friends. Mrs. Charles Henrotin and her committee have arranged a fascinating "miscellaneous" program. The first essay is on the pertinent question of "Religion in Modern Art," by Kate Byam Martin. Then comes a symposium on social life, including papers on " The Luxury," "The Abuse of Luxury," "The Differentiation of Friendly and Social Relationships," "The Use of Forms and Ceremonies," "The Intellectual Possibilities of Society," "The Morals of Society," "The Ethics of Society." and "The Duty of Pleasure."
The next paper is on "The Adaptation of Our Public School System to the Present and Future Needs of the Republic," by Mrs. J. M. Flower. "The New Science of Psychology" will be given by Mrs. Harriet G. Brainard; "The Changes in the Trend of Philosophy
During the Last Fifty Years," by Mrs. Henry Wade Rogers. Lastly comes a stirring symposium, "A Citizen of No Mean City," led by Mrs. Henrotin, who will be followed by the heads and leaders of prominent altruistic institutions all over Chicago.
The founder of the Fortnightly was Mrs. Kate Doggett. who did so much to develop intellectual tastes in the city, and she labored incessantly for that end. Since her Presidency a clause has been introduced which makes it impossible for President to hold that office for more than two consecutive years. The list of Presidents since Mrs Doggett's term of six years is: Mrs. John M. Loomis, Miss Ellen Mitchell, Mrs. Amanda N. Bliss. Mrs. John N. Jewett, Mrs. Franklin MacVeagh, Mrs. Charles D. Hamill, and Mrs. B. F. Ayer.
The officers for the year are: President Mrs. H. M. Wilmarth; First Vice President Mrs. Morgan Bates; Second Vice-President, Mrs. Charles G. Smith; Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. C. D. Henderson; Recording Secretary, Mrs. J. R. Owen; Treasurer, Mrs. Byron Rich; Directors, Mrs. Charles D. Hamill, Mrs. Joseph Kirkland, Mrs, O. W. Potter, Mrs. D. B. Magruder, Mrs. John M. Ewen, Miss Alice Kerfoot.
History of the Women’s Club Movement in America by Mrs. J. C. Croly (Jennie June), 1898
The Fortnightly Club of Chicago, is one of the earliest and most steadfast of the women’s clubs that have been called ” Light Seekers.”
The clubs of the same name throughout the country all bear the impress of the seal which it placed upon *’ intellectual and social culture ” as the object of its existence. It was founded June 4, 1873, mainly through the effort of Mrs. Kate Newell Doggett, who was its first president, and remained its presiding officer until 1879.
Among its earliest members were many of those who have since become distinguished in various fields of literature and organized work: Mrs. Ellen M. Mitchell, the well-known student and author; Jane R. Addams, of “Hull House” fame; Mrs. Ellen M. Henrotin, and others. Nearly all the presidents of the Chicago Woman’s Club received their first club training in the Fortnightly, and it was here that Mrs. Potter Palmer gained her earliest acquaintance with the organized work of women, outside of charities and the church. The first paper given, on the afternoon of June 20th, was by Mrs. Ellen M. Mitchell, the subject “Culture for Women.”
The club year began on October loth, and the afternoon meetings, at which a paper was given by some member, alternated with open evening meetings, at which a lecture by some well-known gentleman was the attraction.
The early subjects were miscellaneous, but more or less studious and scholarly. Dress and Social Entertainments are followed by ” Aspasia,” the “Training of Children,” ” What Knowledge is of Greatest Value to Women?” and ” Women as Sincere Friends.” The intimation is curious as showing the current idea that women were not sincerely friendly to each other.
In 1875-76 the work of the Fortnightly took a more distinct turn in the direction of Greek poetry, philosophy, and art. The male element disappears, and the papers are nearly all by the members; the classic studies are punctuated with music, heredity, and the kindergarten.
Sarah Hackett Stevenson writes upon “Roman Jurisprudence”; Mrs. Henrotin upon the “Rossetti Family, and Their Writings.” A suggestive subject is “The Literature of Silence and of Sleep.” In 1888 Amelia Gere Mason gave a paper on the ” French Salon of the Eighteenth Century,” preceding her fine published work on the same sub- ject. The list of subjects from date of organization till 1896 is fascinating. The classic themes disappear, however, from the later work, and it becomes more miscellaneous in character, but with a modern influence in favor of the scientific and the practical.
The presidents succeeding Mrs. Doggett were: Mary Hunt Loomis, Ellen M. Mitchell, Amanda M. Bliss, Mary Hunt Loomis (a second time), Ellen R. Jewett, Emily E. Macveagh, Susan W. Hamilton, Janet H. Ayer, Mary H. Wilmarth, and for 1897-98, Mrs. Julia A. Ray. The subjects as outlined for this year, from October 22, 1897, to April 22, 1898, are: ” Club and Salon,” “A Day with the Poets,” “Some Modern Tendencies,” ” Sketches of Foreign Contemporaries,” “Tschaikowsky,” “A Group of Poets—Kipling, John Davidson, Verlaine, Bliss Carman, and Johanna Ambrosius.” Others are: “New Wine in Old Bottles” (a study in fiction), “The New Writing of History,” “Dramatic Expression in Recent Literature,” “The Artist in Literature.”
There is an annual evening reception in November, and an annual meeting in May. A vast number of clubs have been formed throughout the United States similar in name and aims; always studious, sincere, and somewhat conservative.
The vice-presidents are Mrs. Drusilla Wilkinson and Mrs. J. W. Owen; the secretaries, Mrs. Kate P. Merrill, corresponding; Mrs. F. F. C. Mason; treasurer. Miss Julia C. Kent.
The membership has always been limited. The dues are twenty dollars (entrance fee) and twenty dollars (annual payment), and each member binds herself to take part in the work as assigned to her. It is interesting to see that one of the directors in 1873-74, afterwards president, is on the Board of Directors for 1897-98.
The social side of the Fortnightly has not been prominent, but it has not been absent. Hospitality has been extended to many distinguished persons of both sexes; and there have been occasional “June-day” excursions specially by invitation to the beautiful home of Mrs. Ralph Emerson, of Rockford, so well known in connection with the organized life of women in Chicago and northern Illinois.
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