NPC in history: Women’s National Press Club centennial

In the early part of the 20th century, professional and social clubs separated by sex flourished. The National Press Club was founded by a bunch of men who wanted a place to go after hours to drink, play poker and pool, and smoke cigars. The language tended to the colorful side.

What self-respecting, early-20th century woman would want to be part of that?

But by 1919, a couple of things had changed. World War I had opened more journalism jobs to women. With the headquarters of the women’s suffrage movement based in Lafayette Park, practically within sight of where the Club was then located on 15th Street, more women were asserting their rights. Since women were not comfortable gathering in saloons or bars to talk, the National Woman’s Party created a tea room at their headquarters as a gathering spot for socializing and organizing.

At the same time, the Club had become much more than a place for male journalists to relax. Within a couple of years of its founding, it had become a regular spot for newsmakers to meet reporters. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson had all dropped by to talk, as well as leading businessmen, explorers, diplomats, congressional leaders and entertainers.

Women reporters didn't care if they couldn’t play poker, but they were irate at being barred from attending these news events. What infuriated them was the arrival of the Prince of Wales. The Club announced it would host him, but women would not be allowed to come. This was social news, the bread and butter of many female journalists at the time.

Cora Rigby, who had recently became Washington bureau chief of the Christian Science Monitor, declared that a women’s club was necessary to combat “the conspiracy of men to keep women off the newspapers or at least reduce their number, wages and importance.”

In the late fall of 1919, a letter went out to women reporters, society editors, and magazine and government writers in Washington, saying, “The other day when a few of us happened to be together, it occurred to us that it might be both pleasant and profitable for the newspaper and magazine women of Washington to have some means of getting together in informal and irregular fashion.”

A total of 28 women responded to the call and became the first members of the Women’s National Press Club. Some of them were veterans of the sometimes-violent demonstrations for women’s suffrage outside the White House that ended with women imprisoned as they held hunger strikes. Lily Lykes Shepard, a reporter for the New York Tribune, was named the first president, followed for the next eight years by Rigby.

And thus, the battle was joined – and continued for more than a half century. The women’s club organized its own events and its own speakers. They enjoyed their club and many had little interest in joining the National Press Club. But since the biggest names in the news were still drawn to the Club, the women battled for the right to attend the luncheons. Drawn into the fray were presidents and first ladies of the United States (Eleanor Roosevelt was WNPC’s most prominent member) as well as world leaders, including Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

Finally, in 1971, the National Press Club voted to admit women. The Women’s National Press Club voted to admit men and changed its name to the Washington Press Club. They remained rival organizations until 1985 when the two clubs merged.

The legacy of the women’s club is the Washington Press Club Foundation, which will be honoring its centennial at its annual dinner March 13.

This is another in a series provided by Club historian Gil Klein. Dig down anywhere in the Club’s 111-year history, and you will find some kind of significant event in the history of the world, the nation, Washington, society, journalism and the Club itself. Many of these events were caught in illustrations that tell the stories.