The Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore Archive documents the words and lives of a fascinating group of women. They sought lasting fame in print, but have been all but forgotten. This archive is an attempt to remedy that.
The WLCB was not a book club. These women were writers, and determined to see their works in print. This site features over 1100 publications produced by the 300-odd members of the WLCB—and more are being added as they are rediscovered.
Established in 1890, the WLCB provided a place for aspiring novelists, poets, composers, and playwrights to share their work and their dreams. The Club's members ranged across the social and political spectrum, including suffragettes and society wives, teachers and journalists, Confederate sympathizers and descendants of abolitionists, Protestants and Catholics. No Black women, however, were admitted, despite the thriving African American community in Baltimore of the time.
Time Span
1853 to 1992
View Timeline
Members shared their writings at weekly meetings, which were held without interruption for over 50 years between 1890 and 1941. The goings-on of these meetings has been reconstructed based on the thousands of pages of detailed minutes and meeting programs that have been preserved, transcribed, and made available on this site. You can learn more about these meetings here:
You can also explore the varied writings produced by the WLCB, which we have collected into a "Virtual Library" meant to recreate the now-lost library that was carefully maintained by the Club throughout its existence. These publications included novels, children's books, poems, histories, scholarly research, newspaper journalism, jokes, and plays.
More than 1,000 publications . . .
We encourage researchers to make use of the data available at this site to learn more about how women read, wrote, and shared ideas during a transformative era in U.S. history.
Collection as Data (click to download/view)
Publications Metadata CSV Publications Metadata JSON Timeline JSON Facets JSON Source Code
Membership Club Leadership Meeting Minutes Programs Map data Excel Map data CSV
This project was made possible through the generous support of the Center for the Humanities at Loyola University Maryland, the Maryland Center for History and Culture, Loyola-Notre Dame Library, Loyola's Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, and the West Virginia Humanities Council.