Reassuring Elisabeth Mills Reid

Author: Joyce Goodman, December 2020

The American Association of Collegiate Alumnae (ACA - a forerunner of the American Association of University Women) was not the only organisation interested in acquiring Elisabeth Mills Reid’s girls’ club in 4 Rue de chevreuse, Paris. In December 1920 Elisabeth Mills Reid (Mrs Whitelaw Reid, 1858-1931) wrote to Virginia Gildersleeve (1877-1965), dean of Barnard College of Columbia University and chair of the ACA International Relations Committee:

“Many people have been bothering me about the transfer of my building. Colonel Olds of the Red Cross, has offered to either buy it outright at my own valuation, or take it on a long lease, at whatever figure I may name. And Dean Beekman wishes to have it for his club work in connection with the Church of the Holy Trinity. Both are in despair at losing it, and Colonel Olds in particular does not know where to turn to find a new building. It seems that property in Paris has appreciated very much in value.”

Elisabeth Mills Reid assured the ACA, however, that she would keep her word to transfer the building to the organisation, but “it was only fair under the circumstances,” she wrote, that she should know what the ACA proposed to do with it:

“I am anxious, as I know you are, to have it made into a big thing, and not just a mere boarding house for women students. How many women will make use of it, and by what scheme do you plan to finance it, and cover the running expenses?”

At the back of Elisabeth Mills Reid’s question was the steep rise in post-war prices in Paris:

“I don’t need to tell you how enormously the price of everything has gone up since the war. When I ran the club in war times, I paid between $50 and $90 often for my meal alone, and $10,000 kept us supplied for a very limited time. Now, although I presume it has dropped somewhat, coal comes to between $40 and $50 a ton, in Paris, while food and servants cost an appalling amount.”

By Elisabeth Mills Reid’s estimate the running expense of the Paris club house would come to about $30,000 or $40,000 a year (approximately $397,382 to $529, 843 in today’s terms). She assumed that income from students would cover part of it, but she wanted to know whether the ACA could meet this level of expense and she also wondered about the ACA’s level of financial backing to “carry a plan of such magnitude”:

“I am thoroughly in sympathy with the aims of the Union, and will cooperate as lies in my power with it, but wish to assure myself that the University Union can confidently expect to replace the Red Cross with a big and important work.”

Having received reassurance on both counts, Elisabeth Mills Reid cabled Virginia Gildersleeve that she would transfer the club building on August 1 1920 but she advised postponing opening for a year “on account of European conditions.”

Virginia Gildersleeve responded to Elisabeth Mills Reid on 5 February 1921 to the effect that in view of Elisabeth Reid’s letter to her daughter-in-law, Helen Rogers Reid (Mrs Ogden Reid, 1882-1947), the committee had voted unanimously to follow her advice to postpone taking over the property until June 1922. The Clubhouse opened in July 1922 to much fanfare in conjunction with the second conference of the International Federation of University Women (the forerunner of Graduate Women International).

Sources

Primary sources

Bryn Mawr College Special Collections. Courtesy of the Special Collections Department, Bryn Mawr College Library:

M.Carey Thomas Personal Papers, IBD2 folder Paris Club House

• Letter Elisabeth Mills Reid of Miss Gildersleeve 13 December 1920, copy
• Cable Elisabeth Mills Reid to Virginia Gildersleeve, Barnard College 15 January 1921, copy.

Sybil Campbell Collection, The University of Winchester:

• IFUW. Report of the Second Conference, July 1922.