Women's Organizations

In order for a family or couple to become eligible to live in Greenbelt, the woman had to stay home and be a housewife. This was fine for a while but then the women found that they needed something to do so they started their own organizations. Most of these organizations centered around the home and children. There were three main organizations for women: the Better Buyers Club of Greenbelt, Pre-School Mothers' Club, School age Mothers' Club, Boy Scout Mothers' Club, Widows' Club, and Womens' Athletic Group. All of these were housewife and mother centered except the athletic group which illustrates the ideals for the women of Greenbelt at this time, to be the best mother and housewife that she could be. This may have been rather sexist, but these ideas were prevelant all over the United States.
The Better Buyers' Club of Greenbelt was a group that held meetings in order to discuss the consumer problems of the time and particularly how they related to Greenbelt. It was a place where women could basically explain to each other where the cheapest prices and best sales were on items that they were interested in buying. The Pre-School and School Age Mothers' Clubs were very similiar in that they discussed the subjects involved in raising children except in the way they addressed these areas due to the age differences. The Pre-School Mothers' Club used topics taken from "Parents Magazine" to use in their discussion for they related better to the young child rearing process. The School Age Mothers' Club decided to hold their discussions primarily on Parent Education and Child Welfare to give the mother knowledge on how to raise a child best when they are not babies anymore.

The Boy Scout Mothers' Club was a club where mothers could be involved in their son's life as well as the father. The mothers were in this organization while the fathers were the Scout Leaders, Officers, and Committee members for the Boy Scout Organization. All of these groups worked together in order to discuss the best interests of the Boy Scouts at one of the Boy Scout Mothers' Club member's house each meeting.
One of the most therapeutic organizations in Greenbelt was the Widows' Club. It was made up entirely of women who had been widowed in order to discuss the problems and sorrow that the members have had to face. After World War II, there were a lot of widows and Greenbelt was not excluded from tragedy. I feel that this was one of the best organization in terms of helping the community's residents because it focused on a group and helped them deal with an ordeal that is one of the worst that could ever happen to someone.
The final womens' group was the Womens' Athletic Group. This was an informal class which focused on physical training for women. It only met in the winter and it seems as though it was just to keep the women in shape and keep them from gaining weight instead of for health reasons. It probably was a subtle sexist way for the men to keep their wives pretty all year around.

Women in Greenbelt had their own Athletic Club, but it was still for sexist reasons.