Celebrating 131 Years of AAUW

During this season of giving thanks and remembering the people and events that are important to us, let’s not forget about the small group of visionary women who paved the way for the creation of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae — the predecessor to AAUW — 131 years ago today.

On November 28, 1881, Marion Talbot, then a recent graduate from Boston University, and Ellen Swallow Richards, the first woman professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, invited 15 alumnae from eight colleges to a meeting in Boston. Discouraged by the lack of opportunities available to them, the women discussed how they would join together to help other women attend college and to assist those who had already graduated.

Although Marion is usually credited with initiating this first meeting, it really was her mother, Emily Talbot, who urged Marion to do so. A longtime advocate of girls’ education, Emily was perpetually frustrated by the lack of educational opportunities for young women, including her own daughters. In 1877, Emily founded the Girls’ Latin School in Boston after unsuccessfully trying to get girls admitted into the Boston Latin School. Marion’s sister, Edith Talbot, was in the first graduating class from the Girls’ Latin School.

Emily recognized that there was little that college-educated women could do with their newly earned degrees. Many in this first generation of alumnae struggled with a lack of opportunity that would be unfathomable to women today. Thankfully, Emily suggested the meeting and hoped that it would unite women of similar backgrounds and situations.

At the November 28 meeting, one graduate from each of the eight represented colleges was chosen for a committee to move toward the next step. So a few weeks later, on January 14, 1882, 65 women college graduates met and officially formed the Association of Collegiate Alumnae to “unite in practical educational work.”

Listen to Marion recount, at age 86, the story of that first meeting and how the Association of Collegiate Alumnae was founded.

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Celebrating 130 Years with Fellowships and Grants

The first Western ACA American Fellowship recipient, Ida Street.

This November, we’re celebrating our 130th Anniversary and the first annual National AAUW Month. This milestone has given me the opportunity to explore my personal connection to AAUW. Even though I’m a member of the millennial generation, I learned the value of education and women’s empowerment from my grandmother, a longtime AAUW member who attended college and graduate school when society expected much less from her. As a Fellowships and Grants intern and current graduate student, I look to stories of past fellows and strong women like my grandmother for inspiration in my own academic path. In the wake of celebrating the 130th birthday of an organization that has empowered women from my grandmother’s generation to mine, we would like to honor the rich careers of AAUW’s fellows.

AAUW’s fellowships program began in 1888 with our forebearer, the Association of Collegiate Alumnae. The first fellowship committee’s objective was “to secure absolutely the best girl that can be found in the country for original gifts, for previous opportunity of training them, for energy, power of endurance, and health.”

AAUW Dialog readers who follow the lives of our fellowship and grant recipients would agree that this objective has been surpassed in numerous ways, all the way back to our founding fellows:

• First American Fellow: The first Western ACA American Fellowship, now known as the American Fellowship, was awarded in 1888 to Ida Street. Considered a “woman of rare culture and accomplishments,” Street studied at the University of Michigan for two years and contributed essays and poems to numerous periodicals, including the New Englander.
• First European Fellow: In 1890, Louisa Holman Richardson was awarded $500 to study at Newnham College in Cambridge, England. Richardson earned her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from Boston University and was a professor of Latin, Greek, and art history at Carleton College.
• First International Fellow: The earliest International Fellowships offered women from Latin America the opportunity to study in the United States. In 1917, Virginia Alvarez-Hussey received an award to study at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. Her academic and clinical work focused on diseases prevalent in Venezuela, such as leprosy.

These women built a foundation for the scholarship system AAUW employs today. The accomplishments of fellowships and grants alumnae surpass what the program’s founders could have imagined, and many fellows have gone on to receive Fulbright Scholarships and Guggenheim Fellowships. Both inspiring and encouraging, this is just one part of the larger story. Stay engaged with AAUW Dialog to participate in further discussion on the history of AAUW fellowships and grants.

This post was written by AAUW Fellowships and Grants Intern Elyssa Shildneck.

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Can a 23 Year-Old-Change the World?

I help AAUW’s volunteer leaders grow their membership in their local communities. Sharing trend information about potential members is critical to the success of their recruitment and retention efforts.

I recently gave a presentation at the AAUW of New York State Summer Leadership Conference that a colleague had previously given at another event. Giving this presentation was tricky, because I had not seen the original workshop entitled “What Makes Women Decide to Join or Stay in an Organization Today?” That presentation included data from Mobilize.org about engaging young women — so-called millennials — and what AAUW members and nonmembers were looking for when joining and staying in organizations. As I prepared my presentation, I included elements from that presentation and wanted to incorporate information I recently learned from the National Council on Aging and author Rosetta Thurman, but I needed to tie it all back to AAUW somehow.

Then I remembered Marion Talbot, (July 31, 1858–October 20, 1948) one of AAUW’s founders. Talbot was just 23 when she co-founded AAUW’s predecessor, the Association of Collegiate Alumnae (ACA), in 1881 and 37 when she became ACA’s first president. At that time, she would have been considered middle aged, but by today’s standards, she would have been a millennial.

Every woman who has or will attend a two- or four-year college or university is a testament to the ideas of this young woman, who had a passion for education and encouraging other women to achieve the same.

What should volunteer leaders remember when expanding AAUW’s member base in their communities?

1. Each of us holds the success of the AAUW community in our own hands.
2. All generations have something to teach and something to learn.
3. There are 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 every day, and they want to get involved in their communities.
4. Providing information and advice based on experiences helps younger leaders be more effective.
5. Share power. Recognize that newer generations will be leading social change in the future.

Happy Birthday, Marion, and thank you!

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Our Voices, Written Into History

How often on any given day do you stop, take a minute, and think to yourself, everyday I play a significant role in history? If you don’t do it often, you should. We have great examples of why what we do is so important and how we affect the direction of change. From leadership programs to lobbying on the Hill, AAUW, as individuals and as a nationwide organization, produce change every day.

Monday morning one of my colleagues showed me a great find that she had purchased at a used bookstore over the weekend. The book, written by Christine Lunardini. is entitled What Every American Should Know About Women’s History.

“Turn to page 112,” my colleague said. I flipped to 112 and, wouldn’t you know it, right in between Clara Barton’s founding of the American Red Cross and the creation of Lady’s Home Journal, was the story of 17 young women who assembled to discuss the formation of an organization promoting equity for women and girls. As you know, this association, which started as the Association of Collegiate Alumnae back in 1882, is now, nearly 130 years later, AAUW.

This book was a nice reminder to me of how what I’ve done and what I do every day helps to educate and advocate for women and girls of all ages. Through all our hard work, no matter what our specialties are or how big or small the task, we all help to improve society individually and collectively. So congrats to all of us and to the kudos we have had and will continue to receive.

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