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History

The Chicago Wellesley Club, as its motto says, has been "Connecting Wellesley Women Since 1891." We welcome the opportunity to connect you with other alumnae in the Chicago area and to help maintain your connection with Wellesley College. The Club's first constitution was adopted the day after Thanksgiving 1891. Its first president was Mary Howe Strauss '88. Since then, our alumnae have made a tremendous impact on Chicago as thinkers, movers, and volunteers. Over the years, our Club has provided the opportunity to Non Ministrari, Sed Ministrare through numerous service projects ranging from collection of reading material for servicemen in World War II to the repackaging of produce for a Chicago food pantry. Our members have supported the Wellesley education of a Chicago area student in need, since 1939, through the Chicago Wellesley Club Scholarship Fund. Our Annual Meeting, re-named "Wellesley in Chicago," is the once- a-year opportunity to hear a Wellesley professor speak about her or his field of study. Our Holiday Tea is a beloved tradition revived at the turn of the century that brings together alumnae from all decades. 

See the list of former Chicago Wellesley Club Presidents here.

Chicago as Inspiration
The song we know today as “America the Beautiful” is a poem set to music. The poem is “America the Beautiful”, by Katharine Lee Bates '80. The hymn is “Materna” by Samuel Ward. Bates was a Wellesley College professor of English in 1893, with a summer teaching position at Colorado College in Colorado. She crossed the prairie by train, passing by its amber waves of grain. She visited Pikes Peak amidst its purple mountain majesty. On her way to and from Colorado, she stopped in Chicago where she saw “the fair”—the World’s Columbian Exposition. There, she was impressed by the White City, the fair’s architectural Utopia conceived as a model city of the future, finished in a glowing white stucco-like exterior. In her poem, “America the Beautiful”, “Thine alabaster cities gleam” reflects the dreamy vision of harmony and beauty that Bates saw on her trip to Chicago.