1871

Waterbury Women's Civic League Records

Collection, M-90

1948 – 1995
Mattatuck Museum
The Waterbury Women's Civic League was founded on April 27, 1942 by Corinne Thomas as a civic club for African American women. Other founding members included Virginia Goodson, Sara Keyes, Goldie Vicks, etc. Initially the club focused on purchasing war bonds, collecting materials for donation related to the war like cans and stockings; and sponsoring entertainment. However, their work was also progressive. Corinne Thomas, Rosa Keller, and Jo Whittington met with local factory and local hospital officials to advocate for them to hire and/or train black women in their organizations. Meetings were held in the Pearl Street Neighborhood House.

In 1958 the League founded a student aid fund to pay for scholarships for local black students to attend higher education. Scholarships were a major focus of the League until the mid 1990s. In order to collect funding for scholarships, the League put on teas and other social events. In addition to scholarships, the League also focused on celebrating black arts and culture by sponsoring concerts, black history month exhibitions, and other arts events for the community. It's unclear exactly when the Civic League dissolved, but our records end at 1995.

This information was collected from the folder "History and Photographs in the Collection."
The Waterbury Women's Civic League Records document the activities of the League from the late 1940s through the mid 1990s. The collection is largely newspaper clippings detailing events and scholarship recipients, although there are also photographs, correspondence, and broadsides.
The collection is arranged per original order, chronologically.
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