Cronin Books – Booth 97
Author & Historian Richard Lee Cronin
The Ladies Social Club of Orlando, organized by Henrietta (Temple) Clark in 1894, changed its name a year later to WIMODAUGHSIS. Mrs. Clark, the club’s first President, was the wife of Leslie Pell Clark of Springfield, New York. Leslie & Henrietta spent winters in Orlando.
The Orlando Wimodaughsis organization held its meetings in the historic Armory Building on Court Street. Wimodaughsis was a national society of women. An amalgam of Wife-Mother-Daughter-sisters, it was organized in Washington, DC in 1890, and the Orlando club apparently intended to be a local chapter of the national organization.
Also at Washington, DC in 1890, The Daughters of the American Revolution was organized.
Wi-Mo-DAUGH-SIS, said to be the fulfillment of Susan B. Anthony’s dream of an association for the advancement of women, was portrayed in 1897 as one of the largest clubs for women in the United States. Not long after, however, The Daughters of the American Revolution became the largest organization of women.
Wimodaughsis of Orlando then changed its name a third time, becoming The Rosalind Club.
Upcoming Women’s History Month Blogs
March 5th Blog – Kate Eagan, Florida’s DAR Mother
March 12th Blog – Mary Kerr Duke – The World’s Fair Judge
March 19th Blog – Katherine Budd – The Lady Architect
March 26th – Clarissa - The Mother of Golden Rod?
The Armory Building, Court Street, Orlando
Exhibit 117 of Orlando: A History of the Phenomenal City (2023)
By Richard lee Cronin
When the Armory Building became obsolete the Rosalind Club moved its meetings to the second floor of the Dickson Ives Department Store. Then, in 1916, the ladies acquired a parcel on West Avenue, on the west side of Lake Eola. It was there that the ladies built a handsome clubhouse, the same clubhouse they currently occupy.
A map of 1919 shows West Street, but that very same year, Orlando changed the name of West to Rosalind Avenue. “We preferred to honor the splendid women of Orlando who built the magnificent Rosalind Club on West Avenue,” said Mayor Larry Giles in February of 1919. “Rosalind is distinctive, beautiful and means something to our city, as that is the name of our ladies’ clubhouse permanently situated on this street.” (Lady Rosalind was Orlando’s sweetheart in William Shakespeare’s play, As You Like It.)
Independent of Rosalind in Orlando today is the Orlando Chapter of The Daughters of the American Revolution. A National Society organized in 1890, the NSDAR had enormous hurdles to overcome in a male dominated Society of the 19th century, but this organization of proud patriotic women found inspiration in a much older organization of patriotic women - The Mount Vernon Ladies Association. The Ladies, you see, were Daughters Too!
The Ladies were Daughters Too (2024)
The origins of Mount Vernon Ladies Association and
The Daughters of the American Revolution
By Richard Lee Cronin
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