Woman's Literary Club Records

The collection is arranged into nine series.

Series I, Yearbooks, are available for almost all membership years of the club, starting with the first year, 1889-1890 and ending with the membership year 2022-2023. The first 10 years of yearbooks are bound in leather and placed at the beginning of this series. A loose copy of each of these same yearbooks placed after the leather volume, for the ease of use of the researcher. For most (but not all) of the yearbooks currently in the collection, two copies are available. Some include notes from the original owner.

Series II, History, Constitution, Bylaws and Procedures, contains records relevant to the history and operation of the club. Among these are club histories written for the seventy-fifth and centennial anniversaries, the original constitution and bylaws, and presidents' and committee handbooks and policies and procedure manuals. Meeting minutes covering the first two years of the club 1889-1891 are retained in Series I because they are part of a complete handbook that includes the club's original constitution and bylaws.

Series III, Meeting Minutes, begins with board meeting and/or executive board meeting minutes, most of which are organized in five year time spans. However, the bulk of this series is the (regular) meeting minutes of the club membership. Annual (financial) reports and proposed budgets appear within this series because they were discussed during the meetings and were located with the official minutes. The regular meeting minutes are organized by single membership year. Generally, the first meeting of the year is in October and the last meeting of the year is in April. The run of meeting minutes is fairly complete. Slight gaps can be noted by checking for year gaps in the box and folder listing.

Series IV, Papers, includes the papers presented at the regular meetings. The papers are arranged by month, day, and year of meeting; most regular meetings had two papers presented. However, in some cases, only one paper is provided for a particular date. Papers are not available for every meeting represented in the Meeting Minutes series. The Papers series begins with booklets on how to present a paper (most current available edition is 1989) and a listing removed from one of the president's handbooks that indicates the authors used for WLC papers from 1947-2004. In addition to regular meeting papers, this series also includes papers periodically presented as programs at special meetings such as the Christmas tea. For one paper presented in October 2005, the exact day the paper was presented could not be determined. A paper that was labeled as "proposed but never presented" (1989-1990) is also included in this series. This same paper was apparently presented at a 2011 club meeting after the records were first processed and accessible to club members, so it appears in two separate boxes within this series and each location cross-references the other in the inventory. Finally, there is a set of two papers for which the date could not be identified using the yearbooks. These papers were probably presented sometime between 2008 and 2010. Note also that dates printed on papers between 2020-2022 may not match actual presentation date because some papers originally scheduled to be presented in Spring 2020 (but cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic) were later presented in 2021 or 2022. Finally, because they are not numerous enough to form their own series, Critic's Reports are also filed in this series.

Series V, Correspondence, includes letters from the president to the membership marking the beginning of membership years. It also contains letters indicating memorial books purchased in memory of deceased members for the Dayton Metro Library and other miscellaneous correspondence.

Series VI, Attendance/Financial Reports, contains club receipts, disbursements, memberships, and annual (budget) reports covering the years 1926-1942, 1951-1957, 1957-1967, 1967-1977. There are also attendance records covering the years 1999-2000 through 2002-2003. This series contains separate ledgers that were not filed with the meeting minutes, as well as reports for years for which corresponding minutes were not provided. This series also contains a historical record of stock shares for 1916-1924.

Series VII, Events, Publicity, and Creative Writing Records, contains special events publicity and programs. The Creative Writing Records consist mainly of programs from the annual Officer's Day/Creative Writing Awards event and a listing of award winners from the years 1932-2003, for purposes of tracking Writer Laureate eligibility. The Bergen-McCarthy routine at the beginning of this series was undated, and could not be placed in the context of a specific meeting. This series also includes a "Miscellaneous" file of publications, flyers, and correspondence collected by club members that could not be placed in the context of a specific meeting based on the available minutes. These documents may not be directly related to club business.

Series VIII, Publications, contains poetry and essays written by club members and published in various sources. Also features a copy of Celia Elliott's 2010 memoir entitled, "Off the Ruffled Cuff," which highlights her time spent working at Dayton Daily News during World War II, one of many females hired as a reporter to keep the daily newspaper in business while their male counterparts served their country.

Series IX, Scrapbooks, contains three complete scrapbooks of newspaper clippings, photos, and club histories (including biographical sketches of some of the early notable members) filed in binder boxes. Where possible, acidic newspaper articles were photocopied and the originals discarded. A 1906 photo of Mary Celinda Chambers Stout was stuck in one of the scrapbooks. Ms. Stout's significance to the club could not be ascertained, but the photo was placed in its own folder. This series also contains additional miscellaneous clippings that had been thrown into a binder but lacked a clear theme or any organization. These clippings are filed in two separate folders and labeled as "Scrapbook".