In 1892, at the 48 Hill Street home of Mrs. William Watts, an informal group of women began meeting twice a week for reading, music and friendship. From those gentle beginnings, and for over 100 years, The Monday Reading Club provided a social and intellectual tradition for the ladies of Morristown, New Jersey. The author of the group's 70th anniversary commemorative history wrote that,
While the club's meetings had originally been conceived as an informal gathering of friends, differences arose between the members and it became apparent that a set of meeting rules were needed. In 1944 a member drew up the By-laws that were still, with minor changes, in use until recently. It was also during this time period that the number of meetings a month was reduced from twice a week to only twice a month, due to the war efforts undertaken by the women. Over the course of the later 20th century, membership declined and by December of 2007 the remaining four members of the club officially discontinued the group.
The documents in this collection include By-laws, correspondence, newspaper clippings, membership and historical information, reading records and photographs. Specifically, this collection also contains information on the 60th and 70th anniversaries, an incomplete list of early members and the clubs' 2007 termination letter.
The records have been organized into a single series: historical and By-laws information files are followed by membership records, a reading record, club notebooks, Chairperson files, photographs and artifacts folders.
Receipts for books purchased at
Most of the material is open for research without restriction under the conditions of the North Jersey History Center archives access policy. Records may be copied for use in individual scholarly or personal research, however, as with all materials in the History Center, researchers are responsible for obtaining copyright permission to use material from the collection. Material in the Monday Reading Club records may be photocopied, but because this material is a permanent part of the History Center's collections, researchers are advised to photocopy with care, using only the edge copier for bound material. Restricted materials will become available at a later date.
Records donated by Virginia Gebauer, 2008.
The Monday Reading Club records, 1928-2007. North Jersey History Center, The Morristown and Morris Township Library.
Processed and encoded by Mary McMahon Dawson, North Jersey History Center Archivist, 2008