In partnership with the Maine Memory Network Maine Memory Network

Biddeford History & Heritage Project

Sharing the history of a proud city rising where the water falls

"Good the more communicated, the more abundant grows" : The Thursday Club

The club, from the beginning, accomplished two purposes. It provided a means for the acquisition of knowledge, the training of power; and the working of a spirit of human solidarity, a comprehension of the continuity of life: its universal character and interdependence. It is not too much to say that this aspect changed the whole point of view of the woman who came under its influence. Her ideals were elevated, her trust in eternal goodness and its purpose strengthened, and her own possibilities as a social and intellectual force, brought out and gradually moulded into form.

The acceptance of the club as a means of education and development was almost simultaneous throughout the country. Everywhere groups of women were found who eagerly seized the idea and shaped it according to their own conditions and needs. Everywhere also the path has broadened, and larger groups of women have and are working with the same eager enthusiasm toward the still larger life, the greater unity, the "all in all." -- Preface to THE HISTORY OF THE WOMAN'S CLUB MOVEMENT IN AMERICA, By Mrs. Jennie June Croly (1898).