beginning of Soroptimist*

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Hotel Oakland - the Rose Room was the location of the first (the 'preliminary') meeting of Soroptimist May 31, 1921. Stuart Morrow organizer "Managing Director"

The Birth of An Idea - by Stuart Morrow

I have been invited to relate in the Year Book of the San Francisco Soroptimist Club how the first of these clubs came to be started, and it may be of interest to Soroptimists to learn that it was an observation made to me by a woman that gave me the first suggestion.

In the summer of 1921, being at that time a resident of Oakland, California, I was asked to assist in the formation of an Optimist Club in the city. While thus engaged, I made a call upon one of the business colleges for the purpose of interesting its manager (whom I assumed to be a man) in becoming a member of the Optimist Club. The manager, however, turned out to be a woman. Upon my explaining to her the object of my call, she expressed her regret that it was not a club for business and professional women that was being organized, in view of the fact that business and professional men already had several organizations patterned after the rotary Club, while the women did not have any at all.

The seed thus sown in my mind took root and germinated to such good purpose that it was only a short time afterwards that the Mother Soroptimist Club became an accomplished fact. Some years previous to this, and upon my own initiative, I had carried the Rotary Club idea across the Atlantic, and had successively and successfully organized Rotary Clubs of Dublin and Belfast in Ireland, of Glasgow and Edinburg in Scotland, and of Liverpool, Birmingham and London in England. The experience thus gained I found most helpful in starting Soroptimist Clubs, and I decided to aim always at quality rather than numbers, but at the same time never to leave a club until it had been placed upon an absolutely permanent basis, irrespective of how long a time it occupied or how inadequate the financial returns. I also resolved to cover first the leading cities of the world rather than limit my activities to any one state or group of states. The prestige that has thus accrued to the Soroptimist Club places it in the forefront of all women's organizations.

It is my earnest desire that the slogan, "Quality, Harmony, Service," may ever be the guiding principle of every organizer of a Soroptimist Club. Quality - as regards the high grade of its membership; Harmony- as between its members; and Service - not only to its members, but to the city, to the nation, and to that great cause of friendship between nations, upon which the future progress of civilization will undoubtedly depend.

- Reprinted from San Francisco club's 1925-26 Yearbook.

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Photos, etchings from Soroptimist International of the Americas archives

* reprinted from Southwestern Region's history book entitled "Out Where It All Began" written and compiled for a celebration of Soroptimist's 50th anniversary in 1971 and updated and reprinted in 1996 for the celebration of Soroptimist's 75th anniversary, prepared by the Founder Region 75th Anniversary Committee and entitled Founder Region "The Way It Was".