Sorosis Professional Womens Club

Sorosis, a professional womens association, was created in 1868 by Jane Cunningham Croly, because women were usually shut out of membership in the organizations of many professions. Croly, for example, was prohibited from joining the male-only New York Press Club. ï » ¿The word sorosis comes from the botanical name for a fruit formed from the ovaries or receptacles of many flowers merged together. An example is the pineapple. It may also have been intended as a term related to sorority, which is derived from the Latin word soror or sister. The connotation of sorosis is aggregation. The term sororize has sometimes been used as a parallel to fraternize. Leadership The first president of Sorosis was Alice Cary, the poet, although she took the office reluctantly. Josephine Pollard and Fanny Fern were also members. Sorosis was founded the same year that Julia Ward Howe founded the New England Womans Club. Although the foundings were independent, they came out of the culture of the time when women were becoming more independent, becoming involved in professionals, becoming active in reform groups, and becoming interested in self-development. For Croly, the work of Sorosis was municipal housekeeping: applying to municipal problems the same principles of housekeeping that a well-educated woman was expected in the late 19th century to practice. Croly and others also hoped that the club would inspire confidence in women, and bring womanly self-respect and self-knowledge. The group, under Crolys leadership, resisted a push to get the organization in alignment with women wage earners, preferring to solve our problems and focusing on the self-growth of members. Founding of General Federation of Womens Clubs In 1890, delegates from more than 60 womens clubs were brought together by Sorosis to form the General Federation of Womens Clubs, which had as its mission helping local clubs get better organized and encouraging clubs to work together on lobbying efforts for social reforms such as health, education, conservation, and government reforms.