The Formation of the
THE ELIZABETH LINDSAY DAVIS CLUB
Established 1904 - Johnstown, Pennsylvania
On May 14, 1904, fifteen colored women met in the home of Mrs. Lena Harris on Adams Street to organize the Elizabeth Lindsay Davis Club. Women‘s organizations had grown exponentially in the nineteenth century in response to the suffragette movement and the need for social reform. Thus in 1896, The National Association of Colored Women Clubs (N.A.C.W.C.) was organized in Washington, D.C. Mary Church Terrell, educator and the daughter of the first Black millionaire was chosen as president. In an effort to bring local women’s groups under the national umbrella, National Organizers were sent throughout the country to reign in the already established church, beneficial and literary societies of large industrial cities. First regional women groups and later state women groups banded together. In 1903, the Pennsylvania State Federation of Negro Women’s Clubs was organized in Pittsburgh. At the close of the meeting, the women who participated pledged to return home and organize a club. Mrs. Lena Harris of Johnstown was appointed a State Organizer. The women of the city provided fertile ground for the ideals of the N.A.C.W.C. to “elevate and dignify colored womanhood” and to foster “moral, mental and material progress. The women decided to take the name of a well - known National Organizer. Mrs. Davis was an educator, an “ardent club woman” of Illinois and chairwoman of the History Committee of the N.A.C.W.C. She would later write a detailed account of the organization in 1933. The elected officers of the newly formed Elizabeth Lindsay Davis Club were:
President - Mrs. Mary Terrell
Vice president - Mrs. Victoria Duke
Secretary - Mrs. Josephine Waugh
Corresponding Secretary - Mrs. Lena Harris
Treasurer - Mrs. Emma Williams
Chaplin - Mrs. Ida Minor
Other charter members were: Madams Josephine Banks, Mollie Banks, Georgia Handy, Minnie Hill, Fannie Long, Maria Peniex, and Mademoiselles Ellen Cook and Nellie Waugh.
The motto of the club, like that of the National organization is “Lifting As We Climb”.
&
Our colors are red and white.
