Study
The Once-a-Week Club was founded in Seneca, SC in 1886. Of the groups that are featured in this collection, this group is the one that most closely resembles the national club movement. This is made clear through its stated purpose found in the Constitution adopted in 1898: to “furnish a stimulus for the study of general literature and for the purpose of social enjoyment and mutual improvement.” The Once-a-Week Club was also a founding member of the South Carolina Federation of Women’s Clubs.
The Club’s yearly programs reflect this purpose. One can find in them a range of topics from literary, to political, to domestic. Club meetings began with a ‘roll call,’ during which women responded with facts pertaining to that meeting’s topic. For example, one meeting in 1916 was on a paper entitled “Women as a Moral Power in Politics,” and the roll call was on famous women in politics. This is illustrative of the nature of this club and those across the nation that are like it the women were interested in the idea of the advancement of women and apparently had intellectual discussions about it as seen in some of their programs (see Nov. 6, 1913 program), but there is no evidence to show that they ever agitated for it a la the suffragettes of that same era. The women in this club saw improvement as something that happened in the context of the club. By furthering their education, these women were forming themselves into models more adequately equipped to lead the advancement of women through similar means.
This is not to say the Once-a-Week Club offered nothing to their community save for their own betterment. The club was involved in some community service projects such as town beautification efforts and the Seneca Library.