Founding and History

The beginning of the Women's Club of Greenbelt informally started on November 3, 1939 in the home of a Greenbelt resident named May Lloyd Willis. Eight women gathered together to talk about various subjects. The formal founding of the Women's club took place on November 17, 1939 and they were federally recognized on February 21, 1940 with sixteen members. About two years after their founding the Women's Club of Greenbelt was accepted for membership into both the Prince Georges County and the Maryland Federation of Women's Clubs.

The object of the Women's Club is to "unite the women of Greenbelt for the purposes of mutual benefit and for the promotion of their common interests in education, civil, social, and moral areas" (Williamson 272). As you can tell from their statement of purpose, these women were going to be involved in all aspects of the community. Unlike my initial narrow thoughts about the Women's Club, these women were not uniting simply to exchange recipes; they wanted to make a difference in their new community. Even though these women were uniting to better their society they still had certain role expectations. After the depression many families had very little money so the wives and often times the children were required to enter the work force in order to support the family. The depression era marked the beginning of the changing roles of women. Please do not misinterpret what I am trying to tell you. Instead of women taking care of the house, their husband, and the children, wives were now required to work outside the home as well as in the home. Because of the dual role women were now playing, the Women's Club became a support system in which women could work together on things; for example, meal planning, in order to make time go faster and more efficiently.

When the Women's Club met for the first time they decided that the flowering crab apple would be the club's flower. With the help of a Greenbelt gardener, Angus MacGregor, the Women's Club donated two crab apple trees to beautify the city.

Club meetings were first held in the homes of members until 1950 when there were too many members to fit in someone's home. At this time they moved their meetings to a social hall in the community building. Around 1956 the club membership had grown to fifty-four members and they again moved their meetings to the Fellowship Hall of the Community Church. Today the Women's Club of Greenbelt meetings are still held in this vary same hall.

Above is a picture of the first birthday of the Women's Club of Greenbelt, in 1940.