Women's Progressive Club of Oberlin Records, 1912, 1927 | Oberlin College Archives

The Women’s Progressive Club of Oberlin, organized in 1905, is one of the oldest black women’s clubs still in existence in Oberlin and in the United States. In its early years, this civic and educational club discussed such topics as the education of women, public schools, women’s suffrage, the status of women, juvenile reformatory work, child welfare, day nurseries, degeneracy and poverty, women in the professions, and home economics. Leaders of the club were also leaders in other affairs of the black community, including the founding of the Phyllis Wheatly Community Center in the 1930s. The club’s founders were Mrs. V.C. Champ, Gertrude Anderson, Effie J. Copes, and Cordelia Quinn Fisher (1875-1949). Fisher attended the Oberlin Academy from 1893 to 1896 and graduated from Fisk University Normal Department in 1900.

Sources Consulted

Roland M. Baumann, editor, Guide to the Women’s History Sources in the Oberlin College Archives (Oberlin: Oberlin College, 1990).