The first woman's club was organized in March, 1868, and was the
outcome of feminine protest, because women were barred from the
reception and banquet tendered to Charles Dickens by the Press Club of
New York City. Among those who applied for tickets on equal grounds
with men was Mrs. Croly, then an active, recognized force in
journalism, and when the idea of a woman's club took possession of her
she had become the most indignant and spirited woman ever locked out
of a banquet hall.

Forty years ago it required courage for a woman to step aside from the
ranks of conservatism and organize a woman's club; it was regarded as
a side issue of "woman's rights," a movement then in grave disrepute.
But Mrs. Croly had dared untrodden paths once before when she stepped
into the field of journalism, and her experience there had developed
self-confidence. She had been writing for women for many years, and
through her mission had acquired instinctive knowledge of their needs;
and so when the affront was put upon her by her male colleagues of the
press she conceived the idea of a club for women. It should be one
that would manage its own affairs, represent as far as possible the
active interests of women, and create a bond of fellowship between
them, which many women as well as men thought at that time would be
impossible of accomplishment. Mrs. Croly wrote in her "History of
Clubs" thirty years later: "At this period no one of those connected
with the undertaking had ever heard of a woman's club, or of any
secular organization composed entirely of women for the purpose of
bringing all kinds of women together to work out their objects in
their own way." And then again: "When the history of the nineteenth
century comes to be written women will appear as organizers and
leaders of great organized movements among their own sex for the first
time in the history of the world."