Nomination: Elizabeth E. Powelson Award—Ruth Richardson, 2010

The arrangement of this collection is separated into six series.

Series I, Administration, includes two subseries. Subseries IA, Local, includes records from annual fundraising events (with particular emphasis on the Annual Luncheon/Auction) for the 1970s through 2010. The older records tend to be more complete. (Annual Luncheon/Auction files are not provided at all for the years of 2005 through 2009).

This subseries also consists of minutes. Board meeting minutes include the years 1988 through 2004 with the last half of 1994, most of 1995, and the first half of 1996 missing. Likewise, the business, dinner, and membership meetings (likely differently labeled meetings of the entire membership) have some gaps. These gaps are evident in the box and file listing.

Financial reports are also part of this subseries (mostly monthly treasurer reports and annual budgets). The annual budgets cover the years 1960 through 2000. Operating and project fund reports cover the years 2002 through 2008. Some monthly treasurer reports and annual budget reports) are filed with the meeting minutes if they were maintained with the meeting minutes by the club officers. If the financial reports were filed separately, that arrangement was also maintained.

Another part of this subseries consists of files relating to grants the Altrusa Club of Dayton dispersed to local nonprofit entities, namely applications for Altrusa grants and correspondence from organizations seeking or receiving Altrusa funding.

Club history is also in this subseries and covers the years 1942 to 1962 with a handwritten addition of the years 1962 to 1977.

Pamphlets explaining community service projects the club sponsored or in which it participated are also found in this series.

Finally, files from the regional branch of Altrusa International, District Five, are part of this subseries. These cover the years 1979-2011, with the bulk of records covering the 1990s forward.

Subseries 1B, National, includes information about the national organization. Presidential handbook, bylaws and organization pamlets are included here.

Series II, Newsletters contains two subseries. Subseries IIA, Local, includes the local newsletter, the Daytrusan, covering the years 1989 through 2000, but the year 1990 is missing. Also included here is the Vision, the Xenia, Ohio, newsletter, for September 1997, the only one present. Lastly, there are the District Five Service Bulletins covering the years from Nov. 1987 through 2012 with some gaps within the date ranges. The year 2000 is completely missing.

Subseries IIB, National, includes the national newsletter, the Altrusa Accent, which covers the dates of 1987 through 2000. Also included is the international newsletter, The International Altrusan, coving the years 1990-2004, however the years 1991, 1994, 1996, 1998, and 2000 are not included.

Series III, Yearbooks, includes the yearbooks of the local chapter. The yearbooks include such information as who the officers were for that year, the dates and places of the meetings that were held, as well as directory information for the current member with address and phone number. Their meetings calendar went from August of one year to July the next in the earlier yearbooks but changed in the 1992-1993 yearbooks to September through August. This may cause years to overlay in the container listing. The yearbooks cover the years 1933 to 2005, with the 1966-1967 yearbook being the 50th anniversary edition. The years 1934 to 1939, 1940 to 1954 and 1998 to 2000 are not included.

Series IV, Photographs, includes photos of members, some of the photographs are identified and some are not. Also included in this series is a Jane Reece photograph of the members of the Altrusa Club of Dayton in 1926 at her studio in Dayton, Ohio.

Series V, Loose Newspaper Clippings/Public Relations and Scrapbooks, includes seven scrapbooks. The scrapbooks contain newspaper articles relating to Altrusa and its members. They also include photographs, with varying degrees of identifying information. The bulk of the scrapbooks are contained in a box placed in individual trays in chronological order with the top being the earliest. The folder numbers listed are the trays.

This series also contains miscellaneous dated and undated newspaper clippings about the organization and its individual members that were received loose as additions but had not been arranged into scrapbooks.

Series VI, Honors & Memorabilia, includes two subseries. Subseries VIA, Awards & Nominations, includes nominations and awards that were received by the Dayton Club, as well as individual club members.

Subseries VIB, Altrusa, includes Altrusa related memorabilia including cookbooks, a promotional video and a coverlet that was sold as a fundraiser.