According to their website, The New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs (NJSFWC) is the largest volunteer women's service organization in the state. The New Jersey group belongs to the General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC), one of the oldest and largest women's volunteer service organizations in the world. During April 23-25, 1890 the GFWC was officially recognized at a ratification convention under the direction of Jane Cunningham Croly (1829-1901). Today, this group is an international movement, with members in thousands of local clubs across the United States and affiliated clubs in 18 countries.
The New Jersey chapter was founded in 1894 in Orange, New Jersey with 130 women from 36 clubs across the state. The groups' accomplishments include: founding the New Jersey College for Women (now Douglass College) in 1918; helping to form the Palisades Interstate Park Commission to oversee the preservation of the Palisades; and undertaking special projects with fundraising, in-kind donations and public awareness campaigns. Examples of these projects include raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Valerie Fund, the Canine Companions for Independence program and most recently, for the Community FoodBank of New Jersey and its state-wide affiliates.
At the national level, the GFWC is credited with turning the tide in favor of the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906 (an effort initiated by a New Jersey clubwoman, Alice Leakey of Cranford); founding 75% of the public libraries in the country in the 1930's; and campaigning in the 1960's for seatbelts in all cars and streetlights on neighborhood streets. GFWC's traditional support for libraries was evident in the fulfillment of its commitment to America's Promise by raising and donating over $13.5 million in books and materials to public libraries and public school libraries from 1997 to 2002.
By 1956-1957, there were 21 women's clubs participating in the state federation. They included: the Woman's Club of Boonton, Brookside, Chatham, Chatham Township (the Fair Mount Woman's Club), Chester, Denville, Dover, Ironia, Lake Hiawatha, Lincoln Park, Long Valley, Mendham, Morristown, Mountain Lakes, Parsippany-Troy Hills, Riverdale and Towaco. Other women's groups from Morris County included: Madison's Thursday Morning Club, Millington's Long Hill Community Club, Morristown's Current News Club, and the Suburban Women's Club of Pompton Plains. As different categories of groups were allowed membership in the federation, other Morris County women's groups also included various Women's Clubs with Evening Departments and Junior Woman's Clubs.
This collection contains only the yearbooks of the organization. However, this format provides a large number of important facts. Such information can include the names of national president's, officers and directors, honorary and charter members, county chairmen, and committees and sub-committees. Meeting minutes, messages from the president, reports, the constitution and by-laws, as well as an index in most volumes, and a map of the state showing county lines can be found in the books as well. Volumes can also include photographs of the national officers, the names of scholarship recipients, calendars of state federation dates and club directories.
The collection is arranged chronologically. Some volumes are missing, they include: 1920-1921; 1921-1922; 1922-1923; 1923-1924; 1927-1928; 1928-1929; 1932-1933; 1933-1934; 1934-1935; 1945-1946; 1946-1947; 1957-1958; 1958-1959; 1959-1960; 1960-1961; 1961-1962; 1967-1968 and 1969-1970.
The New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs Yearbook Collection is open for research under the conditions of the North Jersey History Center archives access policy. Items may be copied for use in individual scholarly or personal research, however, as with all materials in the North Jersey History Center, researchers are responsible for obtaining copyright permission to use material from the collection.
Collection donated by Nancy Adamczk, Director, Madison Public Library in 2008.
New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs Yearbook Collection. North Jersey History Center, The Morristown and Morris Township Library.
Finding aid encoded by Mary McMahon Dawson, 2008.