Income and disbursements for a silk culture promotional organization

The Society was organized and incorporated in 1885, formed out of the California Silk Culture Association. The Society would promote silk culture and teach farmers' daughters how to cultivate cocoons and establish filatures (where silk is reeled from silkworm cocoons), with the goal of women supporting a family with a small amount of capital and labor. At its first meeting January 8, 1885, Charles Wolcott Brooks was elected president, and Mrs. Louise Rienzi secretary; board members included George C. Perkins, Theodore H. Hittell, Elise C. Hittell, and Ellen C. Sargent, amongst others. In 1886, a building and mulberry orchard of 6,000 trees was purchased at Piedmont, near Oakland, with 100 women being employed there. California would not make appropriations for sericulture after 1888, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture declined funding in 1891. Warren B. Ewer was elected President of the Board of Directors of the Society in April 1889. The Piedmont orchard proved to be a poor location for raising silkworms, and the property was sold to Ewer's son, Thomas B. Ewer.

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