Side A: “Lifting As We Climb”: The Cincinnati Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs (CFCWC) was organized May 6, 1904, during a meeting called by Mary Fletcher Ross at the Allen Temple A.M.E. Church. Gathering together eight existing African-American women’s clubs, the CFCWC sought to unite in their work promoting “the betterment of the community.” At a time when both government and private philanthropies overlooked the needs of Black Americans, CFCWC members helped to organize the city’s first kindergartens for Black children, taught in Cincinnati African-American public schools –including the Walnut Hills Douglass and Stowe schools—and raised money for the Home of Aged Colored Women. Since 1904, the Cincinnati Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs has ensured the civic and constitutional rights of all African Americans while meeting the needs of their city.
Side B: The Cincinnati Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs has contributed to African-American education and social welfare in the city for more than a century. Early member groups met in private homes and church halls until they were able to raise subscriptions for a clubhouse. In 1925, the CFCWC purchased the C. H. Burroughs Residence designed by Samuel Hannaford. The 1888 Queen Anne mansion provided ground-floor meeting rooms and, during the 1920s-1930s Great Migration, the upstairs offered much-needed housing to young African American women seeking employment in the north. On October 27, 1946, the clubs gathered for a service of thanksgiving and mortgage burning. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, the clubhouse remains the hub of CFCWC gatherings as they continue their work to “Lift As We Climb.”
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