The Three Arts Club--New York 1905

The Fudge Party by Harrison Fisher (1908)

The Three Arts Club was established in the early 20th Century in New York City. It provided a safe, clean, inexpensive place for young women to live while they furthered their education and pursued careers in the arts. Living at the club gave women opportunities to study and practice their art in a supportive environment, while networking and making friends in what could often be an overwhelming and dangerous city. The "Three Arts" stood for painting, music and drama. According to an article in the New York Times archives, The Three Arts Club built an eight story and penthouse building in 1927 at 340 West Eighty-fifth Street, which was sold in 1952. Link

No further information is readily available about the fate of the organization. It is unclear whether it continued after 1952 in another location in New York, or if it closed at that time. It is unknown how many women passed through The Three Arts Club's doors as residents or visitors, but it undoubtedly served and benefited many women in the more than 40 years of its existence.

The Three Arts Club was inspired by a women's club which already existed in Paris, called the American Girls' Club. Similar clubs which supported young female artists sprang up in other cities as well. The Chicago Three Arts Club was established in 1912, and occupied the same building at 1300 N. Dearborn St. from 1914 until it closed in 2003. Link

The Three Arts Club Booth, Actors Fund Fair (The Bain News Service, Library of Congress) (Between 1915 and 1920)

The following article which profiles life in the early days of the New York Three Arts Club is taken from The Designer, March 1905. This article focuses on middle to upper class American women who were pursuing higher education and artistic careers by choice. Numerous other single women, from lower socioeconomic classes, were also coming to the cities to find work out of necessity. Their realities were much more harsh and their choices for career and housing more limited. However this article sheds light on what life was like for many women in the early 20th century who were striking out on their own and the challenges they faced. I have included original photos from the article, as well as other images from the era that portray women in the arts.

Woman Painter from The Iris (1906)

"How and where shall I live in New York while preparing for self-support?" This is an old riddle, anxiously propounded by every young woman who hesitates on the outer edge of the whirling currents of Manhattan life. She may feel a preparatory shiver of excitement, tinged with unconfessed dread, though not unmixed with the fearful joy of a venture; but when she finally holds her breath and takes the plunge, she is apt to find herself landed in the narrow confines of the proverbial fourth-floor back in the dreary barracks known as a middle-class boarding house.

Recently, however, a far more agreeable solution to the vexatious problem has been evolved by the establishment of the Three Arts Club for students, modeled after the American Girls' Club in Paris. Here the diver, to resume the metaphor, must entertain sensations similar to the dreamer who jumps over a precipice and falls through space--to wake in the soft, warm embrace of a comfortable bed, with the morning sunlight slanting across the coverlet.

And sunshine, both literal and figurative, permeates the whole atmosphere of this unique home for young women students of the three arts--music, painting and the drama. Under its friendly roof may be had, for the nearly nominal sum of from three to five dollars a week, all the advantages of the usual club life, together with the important addition of the comforts and privileges of home; for the new club house, on the sunniest corner of Sixty-second street and Lexington Avenue, combines both club and living-rooms within its four-story brownstone walls.

Revery from The World's Best Composers (1900)

This combination is furnished by no other woman's organization in America. It accommodates at present about sixteen resident members, though the full membership of the club has almost reached the hundred mark....

The need for such a student center was first recognized by its founder, Miss Jane Harriss Hall, specially detailed as diocesan deaconess for this work by Bishop Coadjutor Greer, who had lent his hearty interest, encouragement and support to the undertaking. Miss Hall has been greatly encouraged by the auspicious beginning and rapid growth of her pet project, the idea for which grew out of her connection with a club for students in the rear of old St.Mark's Church, away downtown in the old-fashioned section of New York, where young people of both sexes met for social evenings.

She saw then the urgent demand for some such club as her present institution. Many young women came to her to ask where they could find comfortable rooms, within the limited means of the student, in respectable, well-kept, well-lighted houses, and where they might receive their friends. So few lodging houses even have a public parlor where the young woman borders may receive callers. Even in the places provided by societies there are so many rules and regulations and restrictions that the spirit of real home-life and freedom which the average girl needs, as a flower needs the sun, is utterly destroyed. Out of this need has arisen the Three Arts Club, which is in every sense a home.

And the Club is not lacking in that most vital of all home influences, the mother element. Deaconess Hall is one of those universal mothers whose capacity for homemaking--that most rare and wonderful of the sciences--amounts to positive genius. She presides over the dainty tea-table in the big club room every afternoon from four to six, where her sunny face, under the nun-like white cap in the soft light of the candles, makes a picture which is carried in the hearts of her girls long after they have passed from student life into the wider currents of the world.

It is her exceptionally artistic taste, too, which is evidenced in the furnishings and hangings of the rooms. There are Liberty Prints and draperies which she brought from her trip abroad a year or so ago for the purpose of studying the club's famous prototype in Paris. There are well-bound books and pictures, cozy corners and fern-filled window spaces, sofa-cushions and soft-shaded lights, arranged to delight the feminine eye which takes comfort and encouragement from such subtle softnesses as these, as a general becomes more nearly invincible from a survey of his armies.

The house itself has been a roomy old mansion, and contains all the appointments that wealth commanded; high-arched, solid walnut doorways and cornices, great pier-glasses built above handsome marble mantels, wide windows on three sides of the house, and the many-branched candle-chandeliers that were all the delight of the builders of the generous yesterday when space was not at the premium it is nowadays.

Lady With Guitar by John Eyre From Old Ballads (1906)

Through the glass doors of the high-stooped entrance one enters a reception hall which is tiled in blue and white and spaciously mirrored on the left. To the right is the long drawing-room, done in terra-cotta, and also finding its own double repeated in the great glass on the south wall. There are always bowls of flowers about, showing personal pride and interest the girls feel in this congregating place where they foregather daily to recount in cheerful chat many adventures, merry and otherwise, which they encounter in the highways and byways of their respective artistic pursuits.

In passing, it is a noticeable fact that there is in these gatherings of the clans a conspicuous lack of the petty gossip which too often prevails among the chattering groups in feminine gatherings, and which leaves its unpleasant stigma in the average person's idea of woman's social life. These Club girls are one and all far too busy and too sanely wholesome in their aims and ambitions to bother their level heads with each other's trivial failings.

When the great folding-doors in the rear of the long club-room are thrown open, another pleasing and home-like picture greets the eye. A spacious, high-ceiled, bay-windowed room, done in rich green, with a cozy open fire and a handsome piano, is disclosed.  This apartment serves two purposes, that of music-room and accommodations for transient visitors. The bagdad-covered couches can be utilized as the most comfortable of beds, and behind one of the huge polished walnut doors is a many-shelved lavatory with running water. This is specially set apart for those whose stay is short, particularly those of the dramatic students who are waiting for professional engagements. So it happens that the old room dispenses the dual hospitality of welcoming the coming and speeding the parting guest--who are glad of so pleasant a refuge in times of stress between seasons, but who are glad to go forth to new engagements.

A Musical Comedy by William Glackens from Scribner's Magazine (1905)

This phase of the Three Arts Club is likewise peculiar to itself, in offering shelter to the members of that increasing army of climbers, known for some mysterious reason as "the profession". Young women who are studying for the stage, attending some one of the several excellent dramatic schools established in New York City, find it a most difficult matter to obtain decent quarters in the city, owing to the narrow-minded old prejudice which exists against all things and people Thespian. Many societies, including the Women's Christian Union, refuse to take them, in spite of the important new fact that the elevation of the stage is a steady process, and that the actress may be a refined, cultured, respectable member of the community. The presence together under one roof of a deaconess with actresses affords much amusing curiosity among the residents of the neighborhood, to most of whom, by the way, the club is the object of lively interest.

In one respect only does the Three Arts Club differ from its Paris model--it has no restaurant. The resident members have the privileges afforded by the big kitchen and dining-room in the basement where they get their own cozy breakfasts and luncheons, all dinners being taken outside. Each girl has her own particular cooking utensils and her special shelf for keeping them in the wide cupboards. The light housekeeping done here by prospective authors, artists and actresses, clad in huge gingham aprons, amid much merry-making, plays no small part in creating the delightful home atmosphere which is the dominant and unique element of the club.

The front basement room, of generous size, used as a dining-room, serves also as a sewing-room and is supplied with an easy-running machine and cutting-table. Here is the "den," as they term it, the girls who make their own dresses--and there are several gifted in that line--may be free from interruptions when in the throes of "fitting on" a half-finished garment.

There is the trimmest of little maids in snow-white cap and apron to "tend door" and help with the afternoon tea-things. The resident members make their own beds and keep their rooms in order, though a woman comes each Saturday to give the rooms a thorough cleaning and dusting. Several of the large, square rooms on the upper stories have been partitioned off into two rooms, each one of a fair size and a pleasant outlook. A few of the bedrooms are large enough to accommodate two, though the single bedrooms are in far greater demand, the average girl much preferring to have a nook all her own, where she may be alone to rest when tired, and so be more ready for social cheer when she comes forth again.

The individual touches to the room furnishings bespeak the abode of art-lovers. The simple good taste which teaches that a few really good things are more to be desired than a large collection of inferior ones, is everywhere in strong evidence. Mrs. George C. Thomas gave a generous check toward the furniture, and Miss Hall has contributed many treasures of her own, which she has collected in her foreign travels.

The Sunday evening supper is the only meal served and it is usually a very jolly affair. All the girls, those living outside as well as the resident guests, have the right to come to it and to bring their friends for the simple cost of five cents each. Miss Hall, in her genial, delightful way, makes the scores who attend the pleasant function feel as though each has an equal right to the rooms and all that in them is, including herself, the best gift of all, as any of them would tell you.

Goodnight Beloved by F. Earl Christy (Circa 1912)

The girls are all invited, nay, more than that, are expected, to receive and entertain their friends here whenever they wish, thus affording a pleasant opportunity to those unfortunates who belong to the "fourth-floor back" contingent. Needless to say, the Sunday suppers are the most popular features of the Club.

Thursday evening has been appointed as the special club evening for the receiving of outside friends, although these are welcome at all times. On these weekly occasions it is intended that something unusual in the way of amusement and recreation be provided, such as musical recitals, dramatic readings, palm-reading and kindred features, giving the affair a little gala touch, which makes it something to be looked forward to with interested expectation.

Autumn's Beauty by Harrison Fisher (1916)

During the last week of November a sale of art work was held for the benefit of the Club, which was largely patronized and served in lieu of the opening reception which heralded the advent of the Three Arts into clubdom only a little more than a year ago. The annual dues are only a dollar a year, so other methods of adding (money) to the treasury are necessarily resorted to. The club has been the recipient of generous gifts of money and furniture from various wealthy persons interested in its welfare. Among those is Mrs. C. P. Hemenway, of Boston, who provided its first quarters in West Fifty-sixth Street, from which it removed to the new house at 803 Lexington Avenue last September. In its new quarters the greater part of the expense is met by the rental from the living-rooms and studios, so it has become to a great degree a self-supporting organization.

The Violinist by Harrison Fisher (1911)

"I hope," says Miss Hall, "to see the Three Arts Club the center of all the student-life in New York. So far most of our members are art students and we have a good many from the dramatic schools. The students of music, both vocal and instrumental, are harder to reach. They are the most numerous of all, too. Not long ago, I procured a registry of all the students in New York, and discovered that the women who were devoting their time to music were nearly double in number to those studying the other two arts. The trouble is that in the music the pupils study under many different teachers, and do not hear of the Club as do members of large art and dramatic classes.

"The Club spent last June at the Holiday House, Lake George (New York), a beautiful place given by Spencer Trask and Foster P. Peabody, of this city, to Miss M.W. Fuller of Troy, for a Girls' Friendly House and which she was good enough to loan us for that month. There were thirty girls and they formed a sketch class with Jerome Meyers as instructor. Perhaps we may be equally fortunate next summer.

I have received many letters from all over the country from mothers whose girls are coming to this big, roaring city to study music, art or dramatics, and who are anxious to place them under the protection of the Three Arts Club. Its permanent success seems assured. In time, it is my dream to have a house all our own, where, with no rent to pay, and a club restaurant convenient--next door--we may provide a club-home for fifty or a hundred girls. I am sure I could fill such a house--so rapid and spreading has been the growth of this newest of girls' clubs."

In the wonderful increase in the army of brave women who are self-supporting, there is a corresponding branching out to independence of the right kind, which the average boarding house or the old-fashioned home for women does not supply. This the club quarters, if its hopes of augmentation in the future are realized, will give, and the girl who resides under its roof will be as free to go and come as would her brother in his masculine club, for it will be understood, when she is admitted as a member, that she has self-poise, and understands the laws of the polite world too well to willfully break them. 

It is plainly evident in our great cities there are not enough men escorts to go around, and it is not fair on that account that the single woman be debarred from enjoyment of good dramatic entertainments, lectures, concerts, and the like, to attend which she must necessarily be out frequently until after ten o'clock at night, the hour when the old fashioned home for women and the average boarding-house bar their doors. The latter may supply a latch key, but the former never does. This in itself is a restriction unpleasant to an independent, honest, busy woman, who after a day of hard work deserves her evening of harmless amusement. Again, there are little rasping rules where women have heretofore made their homes regarding the burning of gas, inviting friends to dinner without permission, etc., etc., of all which the club girl of the future will be blissfully free.

Artist Lady by Howard Chandler Christy (1909)

Ellen Clapsaddle Postcard Images

Ellen Clapsaddle (January 8, 1865-January 7, 1934) (American) was a highly successful commercial artist, considered the most prolific illustrator of the "Golden Age" of souvenir postcards in the 1900s-1910s. Her distinctive style was greatly imitated and admired, and she is credited with over 3000 images, featuring sweet and endearing images of children, angels, fairies and pretty women. Her illustrations were also used on calendars, paper fans and advertising trade cards of the era.  Many of her postcards were artist signed; a number of others were unsigned, but attributed to her.  Original Clapsaddle postcards and other items remain popular today with collectors, and reproductions of her images still appear on modern greeting cards, calendars and other items. Images are courtesy of tuckdb.org (link), except where otherwise credited.

 

 

 

Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Leap Year and Marriage Proposals

1904 Calendar-Illustrated by Frances Brundage (source)

February 29th comes once every four years--during "Leap Year." An extra day is added at the end of February to compensate for the slight difference between our modern Gregorian calendar, in which a year is made up of 365 days, and the actual length of the orbit around the sun, which takes 365.2422 days to complete. Adding this extra day keeps our clocks and calendars synchronized with the seasons.

Postcard Calendar (1908) (source)

In Roman times, the calendar year had 365 days, and an extra 22 day month every two years made up for the difference. In 46 B.C.E. Roman Emperor Julius Caesar ordered the Alexandrian philosopher and astronomer Sosigenes to devise a better way to structure the calendar year. After consulting with several learned astronomers, he decided that every four years should consist of 366 days. This fourth year was originally called bissextile, and in modern times is called leap year.

1908 Calendar-Illustrated by Frances Brundage (source)

In the 16th century, the Gregorian calendar was developed. The calendar needed to be adjusted, because of a slight discrepancy which was discovered in the calculation of the length of the year. An extra day every fourth year lengthened the time by eleven minutes ten seconds too much, and in 1582, Pope Gregory found that the actual date was ten days behind the calendar. To fix the situation, Pope Gregory omitted the 10 extra days, and declared that October 5 of that year should become October 15. He also decreed that an extra day should be dropped three times in every 400 years to keep things on schedule. For this reason, both 1800 and 1900 were not made Leap Years, and February kept only 28 days. The Gregorian calendar was readily adopted in Roman Catholic countries, but not in Britain (and the Colonies) until 1752, by which time the difference between the Julian and the Gregorian periods stood at eleven days. An Act of Parliament in that year ordained that September 3 should be considered September 14, and the "new" calendar was finally adopted. 

1904 Calendar (source)

 
The origin of the name "leap year" is attributed to an old legend that Father Time takes a "leap" after February 29th. After that date he leaps over the day of the week in which the date would fall in ordinary years. For example, Christmas was on a Friday in 2015. In most years, it would next fall on a Saturday, but because this is a  Leap year, Christmas 2016 will fall on a Sunday. 

Postcard- Father Time (source)

People born on February 29th usually celebrate their special day on either February 28 or march 1, but have few actual birthdays. The composer Rossini was born on "Leap Day" 1792,  and on his 72nd birthday, declared that he was really only eighteen, and had "not finished sowing his wild oats." 

Gioachino Rossini, photographed by Étienne Carjat, 1865 (source)

There is an old romantic tradition that a woman could reverse the usual custom and propose marriage to a man in Leap Year. Although times have changed, it is still more common in the 21st century for a man ask a woman out on a date, as well as to be the one to propose. But the dance of romance has always been complicated, full of subtleties and nonverbal communication, and cannot always be defined by laws and conventions. The following passage is excerpted from a 1916 newspaper article:

The Origin of Leap Year--Its Customs and Legends

The origin of the custom for women to woo, not to be wooed, during leap year, is traced back to a legend of St. Patrick (who lived in the 5th century). As the story runs, the good man was strolling along the shores of Lough Neagh after having driven "all the frogs from all the bogs and banished all the varmints," (from Ireland) when he was accosted bu St. Bridget (aka St. Brigid of Kildare), who with tears and lamentations, told him that dissention had arisen among the women of her nunnery over the fact that they were (denied) the privilege of popping the question. In St.Bridget's says celibacy was not enforced as an absolute rule for the clergy of the church, although it was regarded as the proper state for a man of the sanctuary.

St. Patrick by Currier and Ives (Courtesy of Library of Congress)

St. Patrick was  stern, but he offered to concede to the ladies the privilege of proposing every seven years. Then St. Bridget threw her arms about his neck and exclaimed, "Dear Patrick, I dare not go back to the girls with such a proposal. Make it one year in four." To which St.Patrick replied, "Squeeze me that way again, and I'll give you leap year, the longest one in the lot." Then St. Bridget, thus encouraged, thought of her own husband-less condition, and popped the question to St.Patrick. But he had already taken the vow of celibacy, so he had to patch up her feelings with a kiss and a silken gown. And ever since that time, according to the legend, "If a man refuses a leap year proposal he must pay the penalty of a kiss and a silken gown." While this legend sounds like a myth pure and simple and cannot be found in any of the lives of St.Patrick as written by his followers, it is recorded in several old books and must have been taken seriously in several countries.

St. Brigid of Kildare (source)

In the year 1288 a law on leap year was passed in Scotland and was actually enforced for a long time. The translation in English of this curious edict is as  follows:

"It is a statute and ordained that during the reign of her blessed majesty for every year known as leap year every maiden lady of both high and low estate shall have the liberty to bespeak the man she likes, and should he refuse to take her to be his lawful wife, he shall be fined in a sum of pounds more or less as his estate may be large or small, unless he can prove that he is already betrothed to another woman, in which case he may go free."

A Highland Lassie-Postcard (1910) (source)

A few years later a similar law was passed in France and received the king's approval. It is said that numbers of maidens took advantage of this law. They must have been accepted, as the records show no fines imposed upon the men who were wooed. The same law was in vogue during the days of Columbus in Genoa and Florence, and one of his biographers hints at the time when during leap year several ladies proposed marriage to him, but as he was already betrothed he "escaped their wiles." In England during the early 18th century, the men made merry on the 29th of February, often climbing on the top of barrels of liquor and drinking to the health of the women they expected to propose to them. In the rural districts homely men paraded the streets, singing as they passed the girls: "Woe is me, no lady will propose to me!" 

 

18th Century parade-"Woe Is Me, No Lady Will Propose To Me!"

In the days of King Henry VIII (in the 16th century), Will Sommers, his famous jester, caused much merriment at court by having the maids on duty at the palace propose to him in the presence of the king. Each one made her own little speech, bowing before the court fool. He refused each one with great dignity, much to the amusement of the king. Each maid was presented with a silken gown as her reward. All sorts of leap year tricks were played by the famous jester, whose spontaneous wit was the talk of the English court of the sixteenth century.

Court Jester Will Sommers (source)

 

Even as late as the nineteenth century leap year entertainments were held and women proposed to men in public. Skating parties where the women called for the men and took them to the frozen ponds were the fashion. The men gave exhibitions of skating, after which proposals of marriage were in order. Sometimes the best skater had the question popped to him half a dozen times. Leap year balls and parties were in vogue as well, and altogether leap year in Merrie England seems to have been a gay twelve months....

On the Ice-Postcard (1907) (source)

(One authority) declared that it was both just and proper in case of a refusal of the lady's proposal that she should be presented with a silk dress. This, too, seems to have been practiced for a time, but some of the men were taxed with giving a score or more of gowns. It seems that every maid and widow was seized with the wild desire to "pop the question," and in this way replenish her wardrobe in pay for her mortification in having been refused.

Woman Proposing from The Omaha Bee (02/27/1916)

All these customs have died out, although one occasionally hears of a leap year party being given where the girls ask the boys to dance with them and act as the escorts of the men to supper. All these are merry jests and there are no serious proposals of marriage, although one of our noted writers declares that "women are everlastingly leading us on."

From The Evening Star, Washington D.C. (01/02/1916)

Postcard (1904) (source)

The following excerpt is from and article in Every Woman's Encyclopaedia, published in England in 1912. This article describes the St. Patrick legend, offers commentary on the13th century Scottish law and other customs which were previously mentioned, and then goes on to describe other leap year traditions from around the world.

Leap Year Lore
by Lydia O'Shea

It has been truly but cynically remarked that the (Scottish) Act was passed during the reign of a woman (Queen Margaret), but this merely emphasizes the fact that although Suffragettes—at least, by that name—were unknown at that period, the emancipation of woman was not, and women knew how to stand shoulder to shoulder in the thirteenth century as well as in the twentieth. One wonders what would have been (Scottish Clergyman) John Knox's opinion on this truly "monstrous regiment of women."

Stained Glass Window Depicting Margaret, Maid of Norway, Queen of Scots (reign: 1286-1290) (source) (license)

*(Note: Queen Margaret was actually a child during her reign. See her biography here link)*


In later years similar laws were passed by various countries of Europe, and, moreover, enforced, if we are to believe the amazing statement that in one year alone in Genoa no fewer than 363 prosecutions were instituted against ungallant gallants who had declined the proposals of certain fair damsels. What a glorious harvest the Italian silk mercers must have reaped in those happy days ! Anglo-Saxon women, apparently, were not so exacting as to the material of consolation, for an old Anglo-Saxon chronicle, compiled before the (Norman) Conquest (in 1066), merely observes: "This year, being Leap Year, the ladies propose, and if not accepted, claim a new gown." Sometimes a silk petticoat was given, or even gloves, but a silken gown was the most useful.

Postcard (1904) (source)

Looking further afield, we find some very original methods adopted by love encouraged maidens. The dark-eyed Moravian gypsy girl bakes a... Leap Year cake, and casts it inside the tent of her chosen one as a sign that she is willing to bake for him henceforward. In Sunny Spain a pumpkin pie is the silent messenger;while in far-off Mandalay a lamp in the window is the token of love. On the first day of the year the "love lamp" is lighted at eventide, and if the wished-for one enter the dwelling, the little maid places it in the window no more. Henceforth it is to burn for him alone ; but if love delays his coming, it gleams like a star each night in the casement, either till he comes, or else, love-lorn, she extinguishes it for ever.

Postcard (1904--Postally Used 1905) (source)

One of the most amusing features of Leap Year is the "Leap Year Dance," which is got up by girls, each of whom asks some man to be her escort to the dance ; and she may also choose her partners. No chaperon is required, the man being requested to bring his mother, and so entirely reverse the usual state of affairs. Besides dances, Leap Year dinners are often held, when the hostess is entire mistress of the ceremonies, and the ladies propose the health of the gentlemen.

Postcard (1904) (source)

But when all is said and done, it is very much to be questioned whether more women do not " propose" in the ordinary years ? Not in so many words, certainly not, but by the thousand and one little encouragements which the most womanly woman may give to a shy or diffident lover, though he actually does the asking? Surely woman is all skilled in the delicate mysteries of Love's realm, and has little real need, unless it be done in the spirit of mischief, to undertake a Leap Year proposal....

From Every Woman's Encyclopaedia, Vol 7 (1912)

Fishing Woman Lures Men With Money During Leap Year-Postcard (1904) (source) (*Note: "LSD" stands for £sd, the popular name for the pre-decimal currency in use in the UK until 1971.  The abbreviation is from the Latin librae, solidi, and denarii, referred to as pounds, shillings, and pence.

Although it was unusual for women to actually propose to men during leap year, this custom was celebrated humorously in many early 20th century postcards and comic illustrations. Many of these images portrayed men running away from or avoiding unattractive or overbearing women.

Postcard (1904) (source)

 
Some people wondered if the new spirit of feminism brought in by the suffragettes and other proponents of women's rights would permanently alter social customs regarding marriage. As the world changed, many people felt concerned and even threatened by women's growing economic power and political influence amid changing roles in 20th century society.

Postcard (Circa 1900-1910) (source)

An article which appeared in The Sunday Telegram in Clarksburg W.Va. on February 13, 1916, expressed such sentiments. The unnamed author wrote: 

The Leap Year Valentine 

"He Is in Her Hands This Year!"--How Will This Affect the Valentines of the New Feminist Era?

This is leap year, tomorrow is St. Valentine's day--and we are living in a "Feminist" era. Figure the combination of circumstances and judge for yourself what the consequences may be. Before Feminism came to be the significant force it is credited with being today, leap year was a whimsicality. There were traditions, strange stories handed down to the credulous, of actual cases where women proposed marriage under the privilege assumed to belong to the leap year calendar. And the joke was always good. It helped social merriment...

He Is In Her Hands

Then along with so many other changes in dress, in manners, in customs as well as costumes, came changes in the mating formulas. It became apparent that women occasionally did propose, without waiting for leap year. And Feminism, that specter dreaded of timid men, began to flourish amazingly, and to recognize women's rights to take initiative in business, in society, in personal relations. We-Won't-Get-Married Clubs as well as We-Will-Get-Married Clubs began to spring up, often as a joke, but often, too, quite plainly indicating a rebellious disposition.

From The Day Book, Chicago (01/13/1916)

Here is the Debutante's Club, organized by twenty young women in Brooklyn, N.Y., and pledging each member to ask a man to marry her before the year is out. Miss Adele Huhn was elected president, Miss Mabel Mckeever was elected vice-president and Miss Mae Morse secretary. The club insists that it is not acting jocularly, but has the serious purpose of defying a tradition that has hampered women from the beginning of time.

Illustration by Coles Phillips (Circa 1912)

What effect will such movements, such attitudes of mind, have on the venerable traditions of St. Valentine? Shall she send the tender symbolism to him? Is Cupid's whole game to be revised? The question is not trivial. Under the influence of a new rebellion it is possible that it is possible that a revision of the time-honored sentiments are to find an actual, practical beginning. Many a social change has begun in jest. Many a temple has been pulled down, many a statute rewritten, under the spell of what at first appeared to be a whimsicality....

Postcard (1904) (source)

If we could know all that was said as well as written under the spell of St. Valentine and his festival, we should have a profounder knowledge of human nature, a deeper ethical insight into this thing called Love. We should know whether it is true that the coming of Feminism really is changing our social system, however subtly, or whether masculine and feminine hearts are remaining pretty much the same as they have always been. In the end we shall discover, probably, that, though fashions may change, even fashions of proposal, the eternal elements that determine the social partnership will go on being what they have been since the beginning of time.

From The Sunday Telegram, Clarksburg W.Va. (2/13/1916)

Illustration by Coles Phillips (Circa 1912)

The following article, which appeared in The Day Book (Chicago) in 1916, presents a woman's proposal to a man in a positive light, from the perspective of a women's rights advocate of the era. The next day, an article appeared in the same newspaper, from a young woman with an opposing viewpoint. Both of these women believed in love, but perceived the subtleties of the game of romance differently.

Postcard (1907) (source)

A Happier World If Women Proposed

Los Angeles, Cal., Feb 29.-- Miss Gloria Headington... is a  staunch advocate of the woman's privilege of Leap Year Proposal.

"Leap Year," said Miss Headington, "never should be looked upon in a frivolous light. When taken seriously it is the means of solving one of our great social problems.

"Why should it be such a breach of etiquette for a woman to propose? The present system of courtship is unfair to women. The world is robbed in every generation of some of of its finest mothers, because some man has failed to ask them to wed. The only way to decrease the number of  old maids is to allow women equal rights with men in the matter of proposing, and it is with this thought in mind that I suggested the Leap Year Court at the San Diego Fair.

From The Day Book, Chicago (03/28/1916)

"There are a great many more women in the world than men, and under those conditions it is hardly right to bind womanhood by such conventions as to prevent them getting an even chance in Cupid's game of hearts."

Miss Headington declared that she believed that many men who would make good husbands are too timid to ask girls to marry them..."It is unfair to the woman in love," continued the inventor of the leap Year Court, "to deprive her of the right to express that love as frankly and freely as is man's privilege. A high wall of precedent stands in her way and she dare not violate custom by shattering it. leap year is her one opportunity to break this barrier. Therefore, I believe every woman should rise superior to foolish creed and make nown her love when she feels so inclined. Many hearts are broken because women dare not speak their minds."

"Would you propose to a man?" Miss Headington was asked.

"Well, that's a hard question to answer, because as yet I have never met a man whom I really loved. When I meet that man, I don't suppose he'll give me the chance to propose, because of the long established rules that govern the same. Anyway, I hardly expect to meet him this year. If I do--well, this is leap Year; that's all I have to say.

Postcard (1904) (source)

"If women were not barred from custom by proposing I believe there would be happier marriages. Women are now under a tremendous handicap. They must wait for the man to "pop the question." Many times the man whom they wish would suggest matrimony passes them by and they then must be content with a second choice. Not infrequently women marry men whom they do not care for in the least just for the sake of getting a home and some of the comforts of life. These are the tragedies of our present plan of courtship, and how can marriage without love bring happiness into the home?

"Reformers cry, 'Take the woman out of the commercial world, out of the stenographer's chair and out of the stores.' This, they claim, would better moral conditions. If you really want to bring this condition about, then create more Leap years; let every year be a Leap year. Women are rapidly getting the ballot. Give them along with it the right to propose to the men they love."

From The Day Book, Chicago (02/29/1916)

 

Rebuttal to Miss Gloria Headington from Miss Isabel Wagner

From The Day Book, Chicago (03/01/1916)