It seems like Almost Yesterday that the Wednesday Club of Cape Girardeau dissolved after 100 years of service to the community.
The Wednesday Club began in 1902 as a cultural organization for women. In the beginning they studied and discussed literature, culture, and public policy issues but quickly changed the focus to civic improvement. It became a who's who organization of women in and around Cape Girardeau - not only for who they were but for what they did, what they wanted, and what they imagined.
The Wednesday Club fulfilled their mission in a vast number of ways. They campaigned for sanitation, purification of food, better health care, and created a civic improvement association. Their successes included securing a city milk inspector, an official city nurse, estblishing a clean up day, and the establishment of what is now today the Cape Girardeau Public Library.
In the first years of the Wednesday Club there was a waiting list of women to be accepted, but in its last twenty years membership declined. According to the final members, this was a significant measure of their success - women who had participated in the society were now living out the original goals of the organization: They were involved.
And the Wednesday Club has made a significant impact on our community. They opened doors for women to attend school, work outside of the home, and shape our society.
Cape Girardeau owes much to women of the Wednesday Club. Their accomplishments live today as if they began almost yesterday.
