A Good Social Work: Women's Clubs, Libraries, and the Construction of a Secular Society in Utah, 1890-1920.

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  • Author(s): Stauffer, Suzanne M.
  • Source:
    Libraries & the Cultural Record. 2011, Vol. 46 Issue 2, p135-155. 21p.
  • Additional Information
    • Subject Terms:
      WOMEN'S societies & clubs; LIBRARIES & community; LIBRARIES & women; SOCIAL reformers; AMERICAN women in politics; UTAH state history
    • Subject Terms:
      UTAH; UNITED States
    • Abstract:
      The article presents accounts of the social work of women in Utah at the turn of the 20th-century, particularly focusing on their advocacy for the public support of libraries as positive cultural institutions. Details are given outlining how Mormon women formed secular social clubs along with non-Mormon women after the renunciation of polygamy in the Mormon Church at the end of the 19th-century. An overview is given of the activities and characteristics of such clubs, highlighting their political campaigns for issues such as temperance, child welfare and social reform. The specific efforts of such groups for public libraries are then addressed.