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WHRC: From the Archives

Cooking for the Community

By: Joanna Church, Women’s History and Resource Center Librarian

November 7, 2024

Welcome back to the GFWC Women’s History and Resource Center blog! This month, as we get ready for the holiday season, the spotlight falls on our collection of club-produced cookbooks.

American “community cookbooks” trace their history back to the Civil War, when Maria J. Moss compiled A Poetical Cook-book as a fundraiser for the US Sanitary Commission in 1864. Since then, women’s organizations from all walks of life have created their own cookbooks to raise money, preserve favorite recipes, and make their mark on their communities.

Women’s clubs have happily participated in this endeavor, and the WHRC holds a sampling of club cookbooks from the 1920s through today. Let’s take a quick tour through this delightful collection!

“Mrs. Thomas Gillice, President, 3rd District, Illinois Federation, prepares a cake from a recipe in the GFWC Cookbook, ‘America Cooks,’ published by Putnam and Sons,” from the October 1968 issue of “Clubwoman.” America Cooks (1968) is just one of several cookbooks GFWC has compiled to represent our many members, in the US and across the globe; others include A Cook’s Tour (1957), International Potpourri (1977), The Centennial Cookbook (1988), and American Buffet (1993).

Because we are an international organization, the GFWC cookbook collection has a broad scope. There is a lot of overlap, of course; just about every book includes recipes for standard fare like turkey, green beans, biscuits, and fruit pies. But there are regional specialties galore; “Crab Soup, Eastern Shore Style” (Mrs. Flo Berton of Maryland) and “Alaska King Crab Meat Souffle” (Mildred Hamill of Alaska) can be found in their clubs’ respective books, for example. The GFWC-produced A Cook’s Tour (1957) features delicacies from across the US and beyond, with recipes for “Bizcocho de Batata ‘Borinquen’” (Mrs. Carmen Aboy Valldejulli, Club Civico de Damas de Puerto Rico), “Ozark pudding” (Mrs. Joseph W. Cushing, President, Missouri Federation of Women’s Clubs) and “Latvian Stroganoff” (Mrs. Ellija Druva, President, Representatives of Latvians’ Baltic Women’s Council).

Recipe for Sweet Potato Cake (Bizcocho de Batata “Borinquen”), submitted by Mrs. Carmen Aboy Valldejulli, Club Civico de Damas de Puerto Rico. From *A Cook’s Tour With the General Federation of Women’s Clubs*, 1957.

From the *Out of This World Cook Book*, 1973. Gift of GFWC Cocoa Beach Woman’s Club, 1986.

Some local cookbooks really lean into the neighborhood theme, like the two editions of GFWC Cocoa Beach Woman’s Club’s Out of This World Cook Book (1973 and 1985) that celebrate the club’s proximity to the “space coast” of Florida. Here is a recipe submitted by Jane DuBose Conrad, wife of astronaut Charles “Pete” Conrad Jr., in the “Satellite Salads” section of the 1973 edition. Like most community cookbooks, this was a fundraiser; proceeds went “towards the building, the furnishing, and the maintenance of the Space Coast Community Center at Cocoa Beach.”

A glance through any given cookbook will tell us a lot about the era in which it was written: what ingredients were available, what cultures were represented in the community, what kinds of events were being held, and more. Just a few of the recipes that provide a window to the time in which they were written include “hogs’ head cheese,” from a late 19th century Texas cookbook; “Mah Jong Mix” for the snacking needs of 12 -14 of your club friends, from the 1930 Ames Woman’s Club Cook Book; and many dishes that make good use of the latest development in food technology, from refrigerators and electric ovens to pressure cookers and microwaves.

A recipe from the “Microwave Oven” section of the *Ladies’ Literary Club Centennial Cookbook* (Grand Rapids, Michigan), 1988. Gift of John Clasby on behalf of the Ladies Literary Club of Grand Rapids, 1990.

“Burnt Caramel Cake,” contributed to *The Club Woman’s Cook Book*, 1928, by future GFWC President Roberta Campbell Lawson (1935-1938). This cookbook was compiled by Mary Davenport Bonner, a member of clubs in both Tyler, Texas and Chautauqua, New York, and it includes a wide variety of GFWC leaders from across the country as well as members of her clubs (and at least one “Hollywood actress”). Gift of Sallie Holder.

When you look at the cookbooks with an eye toward the contributors themselves, you gain even more insight into time, place, and club culture. Recipes submitted by GFWC Presidents – past, present, and future – are often featured, even if they’re not from the state or region represented. Local and national elected officials (and their wives) can be found in books from every era. My favorite discoveries come from two ends of the “famous contributor” spectrum: “Catherine Mallon, Actress, Hollywood, California” submitted a recipe for chess cake to The Club Woman’s Cook Book (1928), and “Nora Roberts, Author for Silhouette Romances” provided a bread pudding recipe for The Chesapeake Collection (1983). While Roberts went on to be a household name, Mallon’s Hollywood career was not so successful; it doesn’t appear that she ever achieved a credited film role.

A page of pies from the Pawhuska Woman’s Club cookbook, first printed in 1925. Gift of Dori Kelsey, 2023.

Since Thanksgiving is coming up, this blog post would not be complete without at least one example of my favorite holiday dish: apple pie. I make an apple pie every year, using a recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens red gingham cookbook circa 1998 (because my mom had the BH&G red gingham cookbook from the 1970s, and probably her mother had the previous generation as well)… but maybe I’ll try something new this year, from something in the Archives.

Have you made anything from a GFWC-related cookbook? Have you contributed one of your favorites to a club’s cookbook project? (And does your club have a cookbook, whether vintage or recent, that we should add to the WHRC collection?) Let us know in the comments!

Read more about the history of community cookbooks here:

Community Cookbooks and the Women Who Wrote Them (JSTOR)

Community Cookbook Collections to Inspire Your Next Meal (Boston Public Library)

Before Food Blogs: the Community Cookbooks (Denver Public Library)

Remember to check back next month for more stories from GFWC history (and present)! To learn more about the WHRC collections, visit the WHRC page or contact us at whrc@gfwc.org.

Joanna Church is the Women’s History and Resource Center Librarian at GFWC Headquarters in Washington, DC. She oversees the WHRC collection, handles research requests, and loves sharing our unique resources with fellow lovers of women’s history.

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WHRC: From the Archives

Freddie Hilp and the GFWC Overseas Unit

By: Joanna Church, Women’s History and Resource Center Librarian

October 3, 2024

Welcome back to our new monthly blog series, direct from the GFWC Women’s History and Resource Center! Here, we’ll highlight stories of General Federation history, pulled from our unique archival, photograph, and artifact collections. Check back on the first Thursday of each month for a new post.

During World War I, the General Federation of Women’s Clubs formed a War Victory Commission to identify projects and raise funds to support the war effort. One major area of concern was the need for wholesome recreation opportunities for U.S. servicemen, especially after the November 1918 Armistice when troops waited many months for transportation home. Organizations like the American Red Cross, the YMCA and YWCA, the American Library Association, and the Jewish Welfare Board worked together to supply refreshment, recreation, and entertainment to the American Expeditionary Forces; GFWC joined in by recruiting several dozen women from across the country for a new “GFWC Unit for Overseas Service.” These women were assigned canteen duty in France, Belgium, and Germany: serving refreshments, hosting dances, and boosting morale.

GFWC Overseas Unit members, 1920. Their YMCA uniforms are embellished with “General Federation of Women’s Clubs” armbands. (See full photograph at bottom of this post.)

The GFWC Overseas Unit members were not necessarily clubwomen themselves, but we expected these “Daughters of the Federation” to represent our organization while in Europe. GFWC President Ione Cowles entreated them “to exemplify for us the fine spirit of consecrated American womanhood,” helping to remind the troops of what they had fought for and who was waiting for them (mothers, wives, sweethearts) at home.

In a report to the Federation in 1920, Unit member Hallie Jamieson described the “love and ideals of the womanhood of America” that GFWC sent abroad with the Unit. She also claimed to have heard soldiers respond positively (if, at first, with confusion) upon reading her GFWC armband. Click here to read the full Overseas Unit Report from the 1920 Biennial Convention.

After the war, we invited members of the Unit to attend the 1920 GFWC Biennial convention in Des Moines, in order to give them a specially-designed “decoration”: an ornate gold pin, engraved with each woman’s name. (We also very much wanted to bring these women into the GFWC fold and encourage them to join their local women’s clubs, but it’s unclear if that effort was particularly successful.) Unfortunately, GFWC’s record-keeping in this era trended toward finished reports rather than working papers; thus, we didn’t have many details about the Unit other than what was recorded in convention records and the GFWC magazine.

In the 2000s this lack of detail was greatly improved, thanks to the donation of 263 photographs taken by Unit member Freddie Hilp.

29 year old Blanche Frederika “Freddie” Hilp was working for
the Nevada State Council of Defense when she learned of the GFWC Overseas Unit opportunity. She applied through the Nevada Federation of Women’s Clubs, was accepted, and ended up assigned to one of the YMCA’s “rolling canteens.” From March to July 1919, she drove around the French countryside with chocolate, lemonade, and other goodies, delivering comfort to troops who couldn’t travel to a stationary canteen.

Freddie Hilp, in uniform and holding her camera, on a beach in France, 1919.

Snapshots of Freddie Hilp's vehicles, 1919

During her trip, Freddie drove or rode in at least two different canteen vehicles, probably decommissioned ambulances, which she nicknamed Daisy and Faith. Left: “Daisy, myself & Paul April 14-1919” Right: “‘Faith’ – in Albert. June 20 1919″

Fortunately for us, Freddie brought along her camera. She snapped photos of new friends; of the servicemen she and her colleagues encountered; of historic sites and French residents; of working days, and time off for fun.

Top left: “Entraining 77th Division” Top right: “Forwarding Camp – 21st Eng” Bottom left: Parame – France. Miss Carlson [?], me, [unnamed], Luckie” Bottom right: General Pershing visited the camp on “June 2 1919”

Freddie also documented the devastation wrought by the war. Amidst her cheerful snapshots are poignant photos of ruined towns, blighted landscapes, barbed wire, and newly-dug cemeteries.

Top left: “Barbed wire – no man’s land. June 25 1919″ Bottom left: “Belleau Woods – 500 crosses. June 27 1919″ Right: “Montfaucon. June 29 1919″

Freddie Hilp’s tour of duty lasted only a few months, but the experience was a life-changing one. In Europe she met a serviceman from Illinois named William F. Gliessman. They married in 1920, and moved to her native state of Nevada; their only surviving child, Lester Hilp Gliessman, was born in 1921. Sadly, Freddie died of ovarian cancer in 1929, just a few weeks short of her 40th birthday.

In 2004, Lester Gliessman’s daughter, Leslie Holt, offered the WHRC her grandmother’s photo collection, opening up for us an amazing window into GFWC’s wartime work. A few years later a collector donated an Overseas Service pin owned by Martelle Thomas of Florda, adding another piece to the puzzle; up to that point we knew there had been a pin, but we didn’t know what it looked like. And just a few months ago, our own GFWC President-Elect Wendy Carriker won an eBay auction for another Overseas Pin.

Front and back of Freddie Hilp's Overseas Unit pin

I am not embarrassed to admit that when Wendy described her successful bid and said “I think the name on the back was something like Freddie…?” I literally jumped up and down with excitement. It turns out that Leslie Holt died in 2017; her widower, not aware of the connection to Leslie’s earlier donation, put this piece from her collection up for sale. The muse of history was looking out for us, and Wendy spotted the auction. When she told Mr. Holt she would be donating the pin to the WHRC to join Leslie’s earlier donation, he said she would have been so glad to know that her grandmother’s story was of such importance to us.

Group photo of the Overseas Unit women who attended the General Federation of Women’s Clubs Biennial Convention in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1920. Though the women are not identified, I think that Freddie is standing in the front row, seventh from left (in the detail view used earlier, she’s third from the left).

A huge thank you to Leslie and Rick Holt for sharing Freddie’s story with us; Wendy Carriker, for keeping an eagle eye on GFWC-related auctions; and Morgan Davis, who cataloged the 263 photos shortly after their donation.

Remember to check back next month for more stories from GFWC history (and present)! To learn more about the WHRC collections, visit the WHRC page or contact us at whrc@gfwc.org.

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WHRC: From the Archives

Welcome!

By: Joanna Church, Women’s History and Resource Center Librarian

September 5, 2024

Welcome, readers, to our new monthly blog series, direct from the GFWC Women’s History and Resource Center! Here, we’ll highlight stories of General Federation history, pulled from our unique archival, photograph, and artifact collections. Check back on the first Thursday of each month for a new post.

To kick things off we’ve chosen a few images from our collections that show clubwomen, past and present, hard at work and Living the Volunteer Spirit. Let’s take a tour through our history!

The Trained Nurses’ Club and Reading Room, New York City, 1894. “A New York City club for ‘trained nurses’ was formed in 1894 in conjunction with a reading room for members who were described as ‘graduate nurses and those who stand high in the profession.’ Pictured are members in the reception area of the club rooms, which included sleeping apartments. Mrs. M.G. Willard, founder of the club, was a permanent resident.” This photo and caption appeared in Reaching Out, the definitive history of GFWC written by Mary Jean Houde and published in 1989 for our Centennial; the image was earlier used in the very first history of GFWC, Jane Cunningham Croly’s 1898 book, The History of the Woman’s Club Movement in America. Many early clubs were organized for study and relaxation, though soon we moved to community action and improvement.

GFWC staff at Headquarters, Washington, DC, 1928. “The ‘Long Office’ at Headquarters in which is rendered valuable service to thousands of clubs and individual club women scattered throughout the world.” Since the 1980s, this 60-foot-long room has served as our Archives, where much of the WHRC collections are housed. This photo and its caption can be found in the August 1928 issue of our magazine, at that time called “General Federation News.”

GFWC leaders with the New Hampshire Federation of Women’s Clubs Bookmobile, 1941. The April 1941 issue of “The Clubwoman” featured this image of GFWC President Saidie Orr Dunbar (far left) with Mrs. Frederick B. Preston (center), President of the New Hampshire Federation, and Lucy Jennings Dickinson (also of New Hampshire), GFWC 2nd Vice President and future President. They are posed with a bookmobile purchased by the New Hampshire Federation for the state public library commission. Libraries – whether stationary or mobile – have long been a major focus of American women’s clubs, and of the General Federation itself.

“Saguache, Colorado club women at work,” 1959. Since the late 1940s, GFWC has sponsored a biannual contest for club projects focused on improvements within the local community. Though the contest has gone by different names over the decades, today it is called the Community Impact Program (CIP) award. Because contest submissions include detailed text, imagery, and supporting data, the CIP collection contains a wealth of information for historians, as well as for present-day club members hoping to learn from their predecessors’ successes. (Look for a lot more from the CIP collection in future WHRC blog posts.) In this instance, four clubs in Saguache, Colorado joined forces to organize a community council, secure a town doctor, and create a museum; the project was a national finalist, netting the clubs a $1,000 prize in 1960.

Officers of the San Xavier Woman’s Club, Tucson, Arizona, 1964. GFWC has a long history of member clubs in Native American communities, particularly in western and midwestern states. The San Xavier Woman’s Club of Tucson was founded in the 1950s as a “mother’s club” by women living in the Tohono O’odham Nation (then called the Papago Reservation); in 1964 they federated with Arizona and GFWC in order to better coordinate their work with other area organizations. This photo, showing the club officers receiving their GFWC Charter, was published in “Clubwoman,” November 1964. Left to right (seated): Miss Carmelita Antone, president; Miss Mary Lucy Wilson, 1st vice president; (standing): Mrs. Albert S. Frank, treasurer; Miss Rufina Morris, 2nd vice president; and Miss Evangeline Ignacio, secretary.

Kansas clubwomen repairing windows, 1972. Here’s another photo from our CIP collection, this one showing members of the Johnson County Young Matrons, of Shawnee Mission, Kansas, rehabbing a house to hold the Temporary Lodging for Children, an emergency shelter for community kids “who are temporarily without parents of a home due to circumstances beyond their control.” The project was awarded first place in the 1972-1974 contest. In the club’s submission, this photo was captioned: “The fruits of our labor brought satisfaction to all!!” (Yes, complete with two exclamation marks!)

Members of the São Paulo Women’s Club sorting donated clothes, 1986. GFWC has welcomed international affiliates since our earliest days. Here, a member club in Brazil distributes clothing to children at the Castelinho Community Center; the clothing was donated by Health-Tex as part of the GFWC Concern for Kids International program. The São Paulo Club helped organize the community center in the 1960s, and won third place in the International CIP contest for their work; in 1986 they won first place for their continued efforts with the center. This photo was published in “Clubwoman,” September/October 1986.

Club members delivering donations, 1995 and 2007. Our magazine has gone by a variety of names over the years, but no matter the title, the hard work of our clubs has been featured since the beginning. Left: Members of the GFWC Woman’s Club of South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, made a donation of paper goods to their local Ronald McDonald House; they were featured in the “Club News” section of the August/September 1995 issue of “Clubwoman.” Right: North Carolina club members made nearly 150 stuffed bears, which were then donated to the Wake County Emergency Medical Services for the benefit of young patients; this photo appeared in the August/September 2007 issue of “Clubwoman” under “Volunteers in Action.”

Atlanta Woman’s Club members preparing lunch for shelter residents, 2023. The inaugural GFWC National Day of Service, held on September 24th, 2023, brought nearly one thousand GFWC clubs together to tackle the problem of food insecurity in their communities. Participating clubs submitted reports and photographs, which are preserved in the WHRC archival collections. Here, the Atlanta Woman’s Club of Georgia is shown preparing some of the 45 lunches they contributed at a homeless shelter.

GFWC Atlanta Woman's Club food insecurity on National Day of Service 2023

Remember to check back next month for more stories from GFWC history (and present)! To learn more about the WHRC collections, visit the WHRC page or contact us at whrc@gfwc.org.

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