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Overview

Located at the corner of Figueroa and 9th Streets, this two-floor clubhouse for the Los Angeles Woman's Club had a Mission Revival Style character, with a long, arched porch colonnade in front, a stepped parapet that resembled those of some Mission churches, a stucco exterior and red tile roof. Caroline Maria Seymour Severance (1820–1914) founded the Los Angeles Woman's Club, aka the Friday Morning Club, in 1891. Severance had also founded the New England Women's Club of Boston in 1868, and can be seen as a very important organizer in the development of women's clubs during the mid-to-late nineteenth century. By the 1900s-1920s, women's clubs mushroomed across CA, with even small cities building clubhouses for their members.

Building History

Los Angeles architect Arthur Burnett Benton (1858-1927) designed the Woman's Club House, also known as the "Friday Morning Club," completed in 1900. It was one of three clubhouses for women in Los Angeles in 1902. The magazine, The Club Woman, described the three facilities: "In Los Angeles, for instance, there are three clubhouses for women instead of one which is central and common to all. The Ebell clubhouse was the first in California and built by Mrs. Robert J. Burdette, then president of the club. The Ebell, however, outgrew this clubhouse and built another which probably surpassed by few others. The Woman's Club House of Los Angeles is built in the picturesque Mission style, the structure is pleasing to the eye, simple in form, dignified in its architecture and peculiarly adapted to the climate of Southern California. Then there is the Stickney Memorial building, which was built by Mrs. Susan H. Stickney, of Pasadena, for the sake of the Shakespeare Club of that city, in memory of a beloved sister. This building drew forth many words of praise from the thousands of visiting club women who were entertained there at the close of the biennial. It is strictly an 'Anne Hathaway'affair. There are the raftered ceiling, the historic fireplace, the latticed windows, the deep window-sills, the old-fashioned wooden settles and the rustic easychairs. But there are modern treasures in Memorial Hall in the way of statues, pictures and books, and there are all sorts of improvement unknown to Mrs. William Shakespeare." (See "Women's Clubhouses," The Club Woman, vol. X, no. 2, 10/1902, p. 40.)

Building Notes

The National Congress of Parents and Teachers held its third through sixth meetings at the Woman's Club House in Los Angeles, 1902-1906. (See National Congress of Parents and Teachers. California Branch, Directory, 1948, p. 12.)

Demolition

This two-floor building became too small for the burgeoning Friday Morning Club by the late 1910s. It was taken apart and sold, with its furniture, to the Catholic Woman's Club. It was demolished so that the club could erect its second, much larger clubhouse, designed by Allison and Allison, and completed in 1923.

PCAD id: 21824