Women's League

In 1921, a group of faculty women and wives at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota joined together to form a club devoted to both social activities and to raising money for students in financial need. In the almost seventy years that followed, the Concordia Women’s League formed successful student loan and scholarship funds, contributed to several worthwhile campus projects, and developed a long-lasting legacy.

Inflation after World War I increased operating expenses at colleges across the country. To offset costs, Concordia College had to raise tuition and engage in more intensive student recruiting. In 1917, annual fees of $240 were guaranteed for students who paid in advance, but the institution could raise fees for the winter and spring terms if necessary.  By 1921, fees had increased twenty-five percent to $300; within three years they had jumped another eleven percent to $332. [1] These increases, along with the depressed agricultural economy in the 1920s, meant that the college had to think of new ways to recruit and make education more accessible.

Miss Gina Wangsness, Concordia’s Dean of Women, came up with a solution. On December 21, 1921, she gathered fourteen faculty women in room 113 of campus building Old Main. Dean Wangsness proposed the creation of a faculty Women’s League, and the idea was met with overwhelming approval. Wangsness’s goal for the Concordia Women’s League was to promote sociability and help Concordia students in financial need. Members of the league could either be faculty members or faculty wives; the league’s first officers were Wangsness (president), Mrs. N. J. G. Wickey (vice president), Miss Clarissa Nelson (secretary), and Miss Ruth Melgaard (treasurer). [2]

The League’s first project was to raise money for a student loan fund. This money came both from membership costs and fundraisers. Each member paid annual dues of two dollars, as well as fifty cents of “experience money,” which she could invest in any way she believed could bring the most profit— some chose cloth and thread for sewing aprons and embroidering napkins, while others chose baking ingredients. As each member sold her product of choice, she re-invested her capital.  In the first year, the League raised a fund of $1,075.95. Out of this money, $942.70 was loaned to seven students. [3]

The next year, the League instituted a “traveling suitcase.” Each member placed an article into the suitcase and sent it on to another member, who in turn would buy an item from within and replace it with a new donation. Unselected items were sold alongside sauces, chickens, and other goods at an end-of-the year fundraiser. [4]

The League came up with countless other fundraisers. Musicians in the group traveled to nearby towns and gave concerts, while actresses put on one-act plays.  One member, Miss Martha Brennun, used silk she had purchased during a year-long stay in Alaska to make calendars to sell. The League also hosted several annual teas, both to make a profit and to show hospitality to alumni and friends. [5]

These fundraisers continued for more than forty years. By the League’s twenty-fifth  anniversary in 1946, the student loan fund was over $12,000 and had provided financial assistance to 540 students.  In 1965, once students were able to secure loans through agencies like the United Student Aid Loan Fund and the National Defense Education Act program, the League student loan fund was converted into a scholarship fund administered by the Faculty Awards Committee of Concordia. In 2016, the fund was still providing several scholarships a year. [6]

The Women’s League was not just committed to funding loans and scholarships; they also raised money to make countless other contributions to the school. In 1938, they helped to furnish the newest dormitory on campus, Fjelstad Hall. [7] They also gave $1,000 toward the furnishing of Brown Hall in 1947, financed the broadcasting booth of Memorial Auditorium, provided a silver service and a piano for the lounge of Park Region Hall, provided microscopes for the biology lab, and established summer study scholarships to aid faculty women in further study. [8]

The Concordia Women’s League disbanded circa 1987, but its legacy lives on. [9] Those who either benefited from or bore witness to the League’s gifts remember it as the “’Fairy Godmother’ of Concordia collegians.” [10] Students who would not have been able to afford college on their own were able to attend because of the generosity of the Women’s League. While Concordia’s campus has undergone remodeling projects since the League’s original gifts of furnishing, signs of their material contributions can still be seen on campus.

While Concordia’s Women’s League no longer exists, similar organizations continue to improve colleges and universities in the Midwest and across the country. For example, the University of Michigan Faculty Women’s Club, also founded in 1921, promotes friendship and acquaintance between its near five hundred members through small, interest-based clubs. [11] The University of Minnesota Women’s Club also includes several smaller clubs, as well as a scholarship program which, much like Concordia’s, gained funds in its early years from the sale of club cookbooks. [12]

Author: Katie Beedy

Footnotes
[1] Carroll Engelhardt, On Firm Foundation Grounded (Minnesota: Concordia College, 1991), 79.
[2] Erling Rolfsrud, Cobber Chronicle (Minnesota: Concordia College, 1966), 171.
[3] Rolfsrud, Chronicle, 171.
[4] Rolfsrud, Chronicle, 172.
[5] Rolfsrud, Chronicle, 172.
[6] Rolfsrud, Chronicle, 173.
[7] “Concordia Women Build Scholarship Loan Fund,” January 28, 1940, Fargo Forum,  Women’s League, Topical Files Collection, Concordia College Archives.
[8] Rolfsrud, Chronicle 173.
[9] Concordia College Archives, “Biography/Profile: Concordia College Women's League, 1921-2008.”
[10] “Women’s League,” 1941, The Cobber, Women’s League, Topical Files Collection, Concordia College Archives.
[11] “The University of Michigan Faculty Women’s Club,”  University of Michigan, accessed March 23, 2016, http://www.umich.edu/~fwc/FWC_Website/new_home.html.
[12] “Women’s Club,” University of Minnesota, accessed March 23, 2016,  http://www.umwc.umn.edu/index.php.