The "Praxis" Side of the Equation: Club Women and American Public Administration

Abstract

While the participation of women from settlement houses and the Bureau of Municipal Research in the founding of Public Administration has already been documented, the contributions of a much larger group, American club women, remain largely unrecognized. The purpose of this paper is to document the activities of the hundreds of local women's clubs, specifically in the Western half of the nation, in the development of governance structures in cities and counties. Western club women were instrumental in founding public services and governance structures for their communities. Although most of them lacked the professional training of the settlement house workers, club women looked around their towns, saw what needed to be done, and helped to create libraries, health clinics, schools, sanitation systems, and decent roads. In doing so, they developed skills that made them the first generation of women to be elected and appointed in significant numbers to local and statewide offices.

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