Foundational Growth: The Role of California Women's Clubs in Community Building, Historic Preservation and Environmental Conservation
dc.contributor.author | Possert, Nicole Y. | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2024-06-14T20:05:00Z | |
dc.date.available | 2024-06-14T20:05:00Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2023-06 | |
dc.description | 92 pages | en_US |
dc.description.abstract | Starting in the late 1980s, I lived in the Highland Park community of Los Angeles for nearly thirty years. Over half of that time, I helped infuse new energy into the landmark Highland Park Ebell Club (HPEC), one of the oldest surviving women’s clubs in Los Angeles. (Figure 1.) That two-decade journey of service, continuing the legacy of many previous generations of local women who envisioned, built, and sustained their community, led me to this research. The gendered space of the HPEC’s “Clubhouse” and its distinct and lasting presence in Highland Park piqued my interest in the unexplored role of women in society and how they shaped community both physically and socially. The work and contribution of these women, through their club and in collaboration with other women, can be experienced in the built environment well beyond the clubhouse they built. They shaped their community’s landscape by preserving nature as parkland, creating playgrounds, libraries, museums, building theirown residences and landscaping, and actively working to preserve and conserve places in and beyond their locale in the name of community service. Today these advocacy actions are considered historic preservation and environmental conservation activities and fall within the broader umbrella of place making/ keeping. These women and their accomplishments within the women’s club ecosystem are relatively unknown and certainly undervalued in today’s academic and professional discourse about the important role of women in community building, historic preservation, and environmental conservation. In this terminal project, I expand the knowledge and importance of these untold histories by uncovering and shedding new light on the contributions of women’s clubs in California. | en_US |
dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1794/29517 | |
dc.language.iso | en_US | en_US |
dc.publisher | University of Oregon | en_US |
dc.rights | Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0-US | en_US |
dc.subject | historic preservation | en_US |
dc.subject | California Women's Clubs | en_US |
dc.subject | environmental conservation | en_US |
dc.title | Foundational Growth: The Role of California Women's Clubs in Community Building, Historic Preservation and Environmental Conservation | en_US |
dc.type | Terminal Project | en_US |