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ESFWC:
The Empire State Federation Of Women's Clubs
Celebrating 100 Years in 2008
Founded in Brooklyn in 1908 by Alice Wiley Seay, the Empire State Federation
of Women's Clubs (ESFWC) is the umbrella organization of New York State
African-American women's groups.
The women who started the ESFWC had two main goals: to do "uplift work among
girls and young women" and to care for the aged Harriet Tubman and her Auburn,
Cayuga County home. Narrowly speaking, the latter mission ended with Tubman's
death in 1913 and the refusal of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church,
which owned her property, to lease or sell it to the ESFWC; however, in
subsequent years the organization has devoted itself to preserving historic
sites associated with African-American leaders such as Frederick Douglass.
The former mission, performing "uplift work among girls and young women," has
shaped the group's activities throughout the entirety of its existence. The
organization consistently contributed to charitable causes and scholarship funds
benefiting African-American girls and young women, and after the Second World
War began sponsoring beauty pageants and organizing girls' clubs. The girls'
clubs were affiliated with the Empire State Federation of Girls' Clubs, which
was established in 1933 and met during the ESFWC's annual conventions. In the
1960's, the ESFWC began assisting in the organizing of boys' clubs, and in late
1987 or early 1988 the Empire State Federation of Girls' Clubs became the Empire
State Federation of Youth Clubs.
Throughout its history, the group's efforts to aid African-American girls have
been rooted in larger goals: ensuring the physical, intellectual and spiritual
well-being of children and adolescents of both sexes and improving the
conditions in which African-Americans and people of all races live, learn, and
labor. The group has staunchly opposed all forms of racial prejudice and
supported the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the
National Urban League, and the civil rights movement. During the postwar period,
it became interested in the work of Planned Parenthood and the United Nations,
and in the 1960's devoted increasing attention to health care issues.
The ESFWC has long been affiliated to the
National Association of Colored
Women's Clubs (NACWC), which was founded in 1896 and rapidly became the
largest organization of African-American women in the United States. Heavily
influenced by its members' staunch Christian faith and committed to the
advancement of African-American women, children, and men and the preservation of
African-American history, the NACWC's orientation has closely paralleled that of
the ESFWC. In addition to sending funds to the NACWC national offices and
delegates to its annual convention, the ESFWC has also been active in the
NACWC's regional organization, the Northeastern Federation of Women's Clubs (NFWC),
to which it affiliated in 1910.
