Santa Cruz Business and Professional Women's Club Records, 1919-2008

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Summary

Creators:
Santa Cruz Business and Professional Women's Club
Abstract:
This collection includes the business papers, correspondence, minutes, scrapbooks and artifacts of the Santa Cruz Business and Profewssional Women's Club.
Extent:
2 document boxes, 13 flats 15 linear ft.
Language:
English.

Background

Scope and content:

This collection consists of business papers, correspondence, minutes, scrapbooks, photographs and artifacts. The early business records, 1930-1949 were lost and the scrapbooks damaged when the clubhouse was flooded in the late 1950's. The scrapbooks consist mainly of newspaper clippings documenting the activities of the BPW, and miscellaneous ephemera collected by the members.

Box 15, "Santa Cruz Business and Professional Women's CLub: Eighty Years of History. 1928-2008" gives a full history of the club.

Biographical / historical:

In every decade since its founding, the Business & Professional Women/USA has been actively involved in key issues that affect women, starting with helping women gain the right to vote in 1920. The organization then continued to grow by opposing laws that denied jobs to married women in the '30s, supporting women in the Armed Forces in the '40s, working for civil rights in the '50s and '60s, and influencing landmark legislation (including Title IX) in the '70s, Retirement Equity in the '80s, and Family Medical Leave in the '90s. Today the BPW/USA is in a position to lead a public policy charge to achieve workplace equity and work-life balance, while promoting equity for all women in the workplace through advocacy, education and information. With its 30,000 members in 1600 local organizations represented in every congressional district in the country, BPW/USA is the leading advocate on work-life balance and workplace equity issues. Local BPW organizations provide members with professinal development programs, networking, participation in grassroots activism, and opportunities to support scholarships for disadvantaged women.

The Santa Cruz Business & Professional Women's Club, organized in 1928, was the oldest and largest club in the area. In fact the Santa Cruz Club organized the area's other two clubs; the San Lorenzo Valley BPWC in 1944 and the Socaptos (Soquel, Capitola, Aptos) BPWC in 1948. Earlier it had helped form the Watsonville BPWC.

Since it's beginning, the Santa Cruz BPW took an active role in civic affairs. Some examples include lobbying successfully to prevent an admission fee to Big Basin State Park, furnishing the first room in the Civic Auditorium when it was built, spearheading the Santa Cruz city "Birthday parties" and also introducing the Small Business Clinic in California.

With an eye to the future, the Santa Cruz BPW purchased it's first clubhouse. This clubhouse was, however, destroyed in the floods of the late 1950s. With re-development funds, insurance money, and a bit of fund raising, a new piece of land was bought. There the Club built a new clubhouse in the early 1960s. This clubhouse served as a source of income for the local chapter and provided a meeting place for many of Santa Cruz's various women's organizations, from the SCBPW themselves to the Native Daughters of the Golden West and the Soroptimists. However, in 2000 the declining membership of the Santa Cruz Business & Professional Women's Club decided they no longer needed a private clubhouse and sold the property in order to benefit one of the club's favorite causes, education. With the proceeds of the sale, the Santa Cruz Business & Professional Women's Club members gave a gift of $200,000 to the University of California, Santa Cruz to endow a Karl Pister Leadership Opportunity Award (LOA) in the club's name. This award, $10,00, is presented annually to two female students who have completed a course of study in a local community college, have shown leadership qualities and have need of the funds. The club also endowed a scholarship at Cabrillo College, the local community college, aimed at young women enrolled in a professional course of study who need help with the expenses that this type of education often incurs.

Since the BPW sold its clubhouse, they have given away more than $200,000 in scholarships to deserving women students. This $22,00 for scholarships, given every year in perpetuity is the legacy of Santa Cruz Business and Professional Women's Club, all due to the smart members in the 1950s and 1960s who were farsighted enough to build the clubhouse, and in 1995 to the other smart members who knew when to sell and where to put the money for the greatest benefit to the women of the local community.

Acquisition information:
Gift of Santa Cruz Business and Professional Women's Club in 2002, 2014.
Arrangement:

The material is organized into 5 series: Business Papers & Minutes; Scrapbooks; Publications; Photographs; Artifacts.

Physical location:
Stored in Special Collections & Archives: Advance notice is required for access to the papers.
Rules or conventions:
Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: a Content Standard

Access and use

Location of this collection:
Special Collections and Archives, University Library
1156 High Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95064, US
Contact:
(831) 459-2547
speccoll@library.ucsc.edu
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