Bringing Texas Women into the Public Sphere: The Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs (Mar 30, 2025)
by Scott Sosebee
Ask anyone that works within any Texas community in a public forum, be it a mayor, a council person, an organizational leader, or even a college professor, and they will tell you one truth that is universal in every city, town, or burg—if you want to accomplish your goal, get women involved and give them leadership roles. Texas has a rich tradition of women who have made a difference, women who have been at the forefront of movements such as suffrage, temperance and Prohibition, education reform, political movements, anything that would help to reform or transform Texas society and culture. Many of these female leaders found their way to the public sphere through their involvement with the Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs (TFWC), which is the largest voluntary association of women in the state.
The TFWC became a reality in 1897 when the Women’s Club of Waco made a call to fellow literary and service clubs in the state to join them to consider forming a state organization. Representatives from eighteen such organizations met in Waco and formed the Texas Federation of Literary Clubs, the ancestor of the current TFWC, which became the name of the organization in 1899 when it was affiliated with the National General Federation of Women’s Clubs.
Organizations such as women’s clubs, literary societies, and more specific groups such as temperance associations grew out of larger movements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the nation became more industrialized, and greater affluence began to form, many of these now middle-class women began to become aware of and involved in matters of public concern. Votes for women, the campaign against alcohol, movements to better conditions in the nation’s deteriorating cities, and other such campaigns that were often organized around issues began to recruit and give women a voice within the public space. Other movements, such as the establishment of libraries and monuments, education reform, and other cultural crusades that had long attracted female supporters, also grew in importance during the period. All of these factors meant that women were becoming much more involved in not only social issues but also political concerns.
Libraries and education, in fact, became the first concerns of the TFWC. When the group gathered in 1898, its last one before it became the TFWC; its biggest item was a drive to fund and establish public libraries within the state. Eventually, more than seventy percent of the public libraries in Texas were founded due to assistance by Texas women’s clubs. They would also follow the national trend of devoting much of their work to enact the growing agenda of what would become known as Progressivism at the turn of the twentieth century.
The earliest leaders of the TFWC were instrumental in directing the energy of the clubs. Kate Sturm McCall Rotan became the first president and thus became known as the “Mother of the Texas Federation.” As the organization grew and became more influential, the TFWC took an active role in promoting civic protection and support for the arts, the building of playgrounds and development of parklands, the extension of public health projects, and projects designed to support land conservation and advances in rural education and scientific agriculture.
When the TFWC turned forty, it boasted over 60,000 members and 1,200 clubs, all aligned in eight regional districts. The group was able to buy and construct a $157,000 headquarters building in Austin in 1932, which allowed them to move from Fort Worth to the capital city. They had established a newspaper, The Texas Federation News, in 1923, and in 1940, the circulation of that publication topped 100,000. They had also become more pointed in their campaigns, moving more into political issues such as child labor laws, maternity and children’s health issues, and music education in the schools. One of their more notable causes, one in which clubs and its members took an active role in lobbying the legislature and gaining public support was the teaching of Texas history as a required subject in all the state’s public schools. They were also instrumental in strengthening and professionalizing the state’s teacher certification laws. They became a significant force behind the establishment of Texas Women’s University and a large fundraiser for what eventually became the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
The post-World War II decades brought change to the TFWC. New concepts of women’s issues, including the growth of modern feminism and other social campaigns such as civil rights and the Equal Rights Amendment, took more of a toll on the TFWC than it aided. For example, although it had never expressly banned the membership of African American women, in the years until at least the 1970s, there was a tacit agreement to not extend women of color membership in the clubs. Women’s clubs themselves, not just the TFWC, seemed to become quaint, like the trappings of an earlier era by the 1980s and 1990s. Through the 1980s, membership declined to only about 10,000, and in the 1990s, there were only about 400 clubs. However, while the membership has declined, the spirit of these clubs remained, and today—just as it was in the early parts of the twentieth century—if you want someone to push a campaign of service, calling a Texas Federation of Women’s Club had better be one of your first moves.
The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee is a Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University and the Executive Director of the Association. He can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu or via www.easttexashistorical.org.