I am fascinated by the creativity and perseverance of the women who formed the Boothbay Harbor Monday Club, organized in 1895 and federated in 1897. The overflowing desk drawers of minutes, program booklets, newspaper articles, and scrapbooks are evidence of their determination to make a meaningful impact on their own lives and on their community. An extract from their Constitution states, “The purpose of this Club shall be the mutual improvement of its members through the medium of study, and the discussion and consideration of such matters as may from time to time be determined upon.”  The History of the Monday Club, 1895-1945, typed on onion skin paper written by Mrs. Julia Tupper Reed dated October 1, 1945, gives us a window into the multiple actions that these women had taken as active citizens of the region, with their Club Motto stating, “There is only one proof of ability – ‘Action’.”

Twenty-five years following her involvement in the passing of the 1920 Nineteenth Amendment giving American women the vote, Elizabeth Freeman Reed reflected on the impact of women on society by writing a pageant for both the Boothbay Harbor’s Monday Club’s Forty-fifth Year Anniversary and for the commemoration of the Golden Jubilee of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs from 1890-1940. Titled The Progress of Women, the pageant was performed at the Boothbay Harbor Congregational Church on April 30, 1940. It depicted the influence that many well-known and some lesser-known American women had exerted in all walks of life since the earliest history of the United States. Anne Hutchinson, Hannah Dustin, Deborah Sampson, Abigail Adams, Mercy Warren, Sacajawea, Lucretia Mott, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Clara Barton, Susan B. Anthony, Helen Hunt Jackson, Louisa M. Alcott, Lillian Nordica, Mrs. H.H. Beach, and Jane Adams are among the pageant’s thirty-four characters, with Monday Club members playing multiple parts while dressed in period costumes. 

The opening lines of the prologue in Scene I give a hint of how Elizabeth Reed viewed the issues of women’s rights:  

Eons Ago 

Living in caves, 

Women to men 

Were merely slaves. 

If a woman rebelled, 

With a heavy thud,  

Down on her head 

Came the Cave Man’s Club. 

 Scene II begins in 1635 in Boston in a small Puritan house where Anne Hutchinson and Mrs. Wilson, the wife of a Puritan minister, are knitting while having a robust discussion about a woman’s role in society. Scene II continues as different characters appear and carry on with meaningful discussions. Dancing and singing are incorporated into what must have been both an educational and entertaining performance for the entire audience. The final words in the uplifting Epilogue give us the sense that Elizabeth Reed was putting forth her sense of ability – “Action”.   

Our Golden Jubilee is here. 

We now have reached a new frontier 

Let’s throw off every mental shackle 

And never fear new tasks to tackle. 

The dimming past we leave behind 

We’ll try to develop a master-mind 

For each and all of woman-kind. 

A place in the world is for those who dare; 

A woman’s place is everywhere.  

 
The full script of the Progress of Women pageant is available at the Museum for any thespians willing to take it on! Anyone who is interested in learning more about The Monday Club should stop in the Museum to peek at some of the documents, including The History of the Monday Club, 1895-1945 in the current exhibit: A Look Back - 150 Years of Life in the Boothbay Region.