Over the past few months, I’ve been looking into the history of Farmington area women’s groups, starting with the Ladies Literary Guild, organized in 1897. This has been my first foray into historical research, and I am now sadly and thoroughly hooked.
Today, for instance, I found myself unreasonably excited to have stumbled across a most interesting piece in a digitized back issue of the Farmington Enterprise. In June of 1930, local women organized a Business and Professional Women’s Club chapter, with help from the organization’s state president, Miss Mary Blumfield of Royal Oak. What seemed odd to me was this:
“Miss Emily Butterfield is the moving spirit in organization of the Farmington Club, being also the president of a similar organization in Detroit. She is, in fact, the originator of the idea of clubs of this kind for women and a national organization has been built up.”
Odd, because the Farmington native co-founded the Business & Professional Women in 1912. I can’t help but wonder why it took 18 years for her to put together a similar group in Farmington. Was there no interest in our community? Was she too busy with the Detroit group and her career to get a Farmington group off the ground? Not enough professional women in Farmington?
I’m hoping to find more answers about Emily Butterfield’s life and career in Algonac, where the historical society has a great deal of information about her. And another project waits in the wings.
This is what comes from hanging out with historians.
–Joni Hubred-Golden
Publisher, The Enterprise
