SOUNDING OFF: Woman’s Club has long history

Last December I volunteered to become historian of the Woman’s Club of Laguna Beach. I spent many hours engrossed in minutes and scrapbooks dating to the club’s founding in 1922.

The 1920s were an important time for women. Women were granted the right to vote in 1920. Women composed nearly one-quarter of the labor force. The first generation of college-educated women entered professions such as nursing, teaching, social work and pediatrics.

The woman’s club movement was picking up steam across the nation.

On Jan. 20, 1922, 16 women met at the Art Gallery in Laguna Beach to discuss how to enrich the lives of residents. They decided to form the Woman’s Club of Laguna Beach

Within three years, the Woman’s Club had grown to more than 100 members. To put this in perspective, in 1925 Laguna Beach had a total population of roughly 1,500 residents.

The club’s press chairwoman wrote, “The Woman’s Club is composed of writers, artists and thinkers, and these women have put on excellent programs … they are willing to serve in all civic affairs … and the destinies of the village.”

For more than 85 years, club members have supported hundreds of local and Orange County charitable organizations through donations and volunteer time.

Beneficiaries of the Woman’s Club’s generosity in the early years include some of the town’s first organizations: the Library Board, Community Club and Art Assn. The community benefited from club initiatives, such as spearheading the creation of a playground at Bluebird Park and helping fund construction of what is now South Coast Medical Center.

The first clubhouse, the Old Ranch House on Forest Avenue, quickly became a center of activity for members and the community.

Speakers traveled to the clubhouse from far and wide to discuss such topics as “The Life of Shakespeare,” “Philosophy of Buddha,” “The Arabs” and “Sputnik and the Space Program.”

The Old Ranch House was also a source of steady revenue to fund the club’s charitable efforts. In 1927, the clubhouse was rented to the Little Arts Theatre for $3.50 plus $2 for chairs.

In the 1940s and ’50s, the club increased efforts to organize fundraisers to benefit the community. After the Junior Woman’s Club was established in 1946, a first project was to raise funds to refurbish the local Youth Center.

In 1950, the Laguna Beach City Council purchased the Old Ranch House from the Woman’s Club as a site for a new city hall building. The Woman’s Club constructed a new clubhouse on St. Ann’s Drive.

In 1956, the activities of the club were “centered to a large degree around the project most important to the whole community — the new South Coast Community Hospital.”

Woman’s Club members raised money by showing films and hosting art classes at the club house. They also contributed volunteer hours and donated proceeds from thrift shop sales.

In its long history, perhaps one of the most ambitious — and successful — initiatives by the Woman’s Club of Laguna Beach took place in 1959, when the club launched a fundraising campaign for the Bluebird Playground project.

According to the Laguna Beach Post, “In Feb. 1959, a committee of the Woman’s Club of Laguna Beach selected as a community project most needed in Laguna Beach, recreational facilities for our youth.”

The story continued: “The city officials were anxious to cooperate and a survey taken showed that playgrounds have been indicated as the most urgently needed of all facilities, next to hospitals and schools. At the urging of the Woman’s Club, the city purchased an additional quarter acre which brought the total to two and a quarter acres of land in Bluebird Canyon owned by the city.”

The Woman’s Club held book sales, bake sales and other events to raise funds for playground equipment, which was to include a “slide resembling a whale, a play castle and a ‘tyke-trike-bike’ where future hot rodders can learn the rules of the road while they wheel.”

On May 1, 1962, more than 1,500 people gathered to dedicate the new Bluebird Park.

The city planning director acknowledged the club president by announcing, “Never underestimate the power of a woman.”

Since the 1960s, Woman’s Club members have continued to find creative ways to meet community needs. In 1966, the club opened the Women’s Resource Center.

In 1995 the main club priority was to “continue to work toward the funding and establishing of a new senior center.” It was also the year the Woman’s Club established the Woman of the Year award to recognize the contributions of outstanding Laguna Beach women who epitomize the club’s mission to enhance the lives of others in our community through volunteer service.

The first honoree was community volunteer Sande St. John. This June the Woman’s Club recognized performer extraordinaire Bree Burgess Rosen.

The spirit of the early women leaders of Laguna Beach lives on.

JOAN GLADSTONE lives in Laguna Beach.