Orlando club closes chapter, leaves proud legacy for women
A year of pandemic has dealt losses to many Central Florida institutions, including a 128-year-old women’s club focused on civic service: Sorosis of Orlando, founded in 1893 and recognized by the international General Federation of Women’s Clubs in 1915.
Nationally, the first Sorosis Club was organized in New York City in 1868; the name comes from the same Latin root (“soror”) as “sorority,” meaning sisterhood.
Since 1972, the Orlando club’s home has been its own building on East Livingston Street near Lake Eola Park — the site of countless meetings over decades not only by Sorosis but also by other civic organizations, including the League of Women Voters and the Rotary Club of Orlando. Couples have been married there, birthdays celebrated and departed folks honored at memorials.
But that long chapter has ended. The rental income on which the club depended to maintain the Livingston Street building disappeared during the pandemic and members recently made the tough decision to sell their home of 49 years.
National movement
The group’s Orlando founders were part of national women’s club movement that emerged after the Civil War — especially between the late 1890s and World War I, during an era characterized by reform movements in business, education, government, labor, politics and women’s rights.
Founded in 1890, the national General Federation of Women’s Clubs emerged during this era. By 1895
— the year the federation’s Florida branch was founded — the national federation had established affiliations with 500 clubs nationwide and boasted an enrollment of 100,000 members, which mushroomed to 2 million by 1914.
Officers of Sorosis of Orlando for 1952-53 look through club scrapbooks in October 1952.
In early 20th-century Florida, women’s club members influenced legislation that led to improvements in school systems, health care and highway construction. They also advocated for votes for women. One of their signature achievements was the development of Royal Palm Park, the first state park established in Florida, in 1916. It later became the nucleus of Everglades National Park in 1947.
In Orlando, the development of a library was a special focus. In 1897, the women of Sorosis began a small circulating library, operating first from members’ homes. They moved to rooms in the three-story brick armory building and then to the Knox-Bacon Building at 34 E. Pine St., where a brass plaque pays homage to Sorosis.
Eventually, the club’s lending library formed part of the foundation of the Albertson Public Library. It was the precursor of the Orlando Public Library, which opened in 1923 with a collection of books donated by Capt. Charles Albertson, a retired police inspector and winter resident, as well as 13,000 books from the Sorosis Club’s collection of 20,000.
Leaving a legacy
In 1952, the women of Sorosis used prize winnings from the National Federation’s Community Improvement contest to buy the first bookmobile
in Central Florida, extending the opportunity to enjoy books to the community. That year, a Sentinel tribute to the club on the eve of its 60th anniversary noted a thriving membership of 719, in a then-small city of about 52,000.
In these days of dwindling enrollment for many civic clubs, the Sorosis members who are saying goodbye to their beloved building number about 20. They hope to continue to meet, perhaps in members’ homes, as their founders did 128 years ago.
But thanks to the sale of the property for more than a million dollars, they’re excited to leave a great legacy, notes Susan Piner, the club’s president.
Sorosis will continue to fund college scholarships for Orange County high school seniors, as it has since 1927, as well as support education for women reentering the workplace, through the Florida General Federation of Women’s Clubs. They also plan to continue to support the library system.
“We are saddened to sell our clubhouse but thrilled with the legacy we will leave the community,” says Piner.