Original 1916 caption: A social club of self-supporting young women (teachers, stenographers, bookkeepers) who have made good. This picture is eight years old. One of the group is dead, eleven are married and four are successful “bachelor maids.”
Original 1916 caption: A social club of self-supporting young women (teachers, stenographers, bookkeepers) who have made good. This picture is eight years old. One of the group is dead, eleven are married and four are successful “bachelor maids.” Source: Charles Victor Roman (Public Domain)

I have always been fascinated by this photograph. It shows a group of young ladies who banded together to help one another make something extraordinary of their lives at a time when doing so was a daunting task for American Americans.

But with all the difficult obstacles they knew would be unjustly thrown in their way, they still seem, to my eye, to be determined, serene, and confident as they look to the future. I wish I could have known them.

I did, in fact, want to know more about them, so I tried to track down as much information as I could find about who they were and what happened to them. I wasn’t able to uncover anything about them as individuals, but the background of this photograph tells its own story.

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