Our latest “Document of the Week” was chosen by our Senior Editor, Dr Tommy Dolan. It is a short article printed in the American Women’s Club Magazine in September 1927.
Founded in May 1899 as the Society of American Women in London, the American Women’s Club (AWC), as it became known in 1916, was an organisation for female expats from America. By the 1920s, it had 1,500 members and a lavish, fully-staffed headquarters in Mayfair. In January 1925, 100 years ago, the American Women’s Club Magazine (AWCM), appeared.
Articles detail the educational, philanthropic, and social activities that club members pursued. They also illuminate the local, national, and international—especially transatlantic—networks within which the club operated.
In this article—the first of three monthly instalments—an “American housewife”, Mrs J. H. Butler, recounts her voyage to London and subsequent life there. Initially thrilled to escape America for "heaven", where “you would breathe the air of kings and queens, revel in the haunts of Dickens and Shakespeare, or bask in the brilliance of Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells”, disappointment soon sets in.
She complains of dismal meals featuring roast beef and Irish (as opposed to Maine) potatoes, of coffee resembling “black ink”, and of the “terrible hats and colossal shoes” sported by English ladies onboard their steamer. Her husband, who had hurried to the ship’s smoking-room to converse with English gentlemen, re-emerges “too dejected for words”. On the train to London she becomes “conscious of a deadly chill creeping through the air, penetrating first your ankles, then your legs, then your wrists”. A night in an English hotel room, with its “poor little fire . . . flickering feebly away”, fails to warm her spirits.
In spite of these stark reality checks, she nevertheless remains optimistic about embarking upon a “new adventure in the charmed atmosphere of old England”.
Where to find this document
This piece comes from our primary source collection American Women's Club Magazine, 1925–1936. Consisting of nearly 3,400 images, it brings together editions of the AWCM that were published monthly throughout this period. These document the history and activities of the AWC. They likewise shed light upon the wider social, political, and cultural contexts that precipitated and shaped institutions like the AWC. Visit the collection page to learn more.