Book Reviewed: Our First One Hundred Years: The Ingleside Book Club of Morgantown, 1923–2023 by Beth Reseter

A women’s’ reading circle The Ingleside Book Club was formed by twenty-one women in 1923 in Morgantown, West Virginia that steadily grew in range and now celebrating their 100th anniversary. This is a great story of women who enjoyed literature, home economics, poetry, opera, music, and social issues. Some of the earliest book clubs in the United States were Bible study groups, which became women's reading circles that focused on education, self-improvement, and friendship. The first two women's clubs in West Virginia that are now extinct were formed in 1892. The early guest speakers at the Ingleside book club spoke about topics such as, "West Virginia Birds," and "Religious Education in the Home." They also made musical presentations, gave book reviews, discussed poetry, and learned about opera. In 1929 the book club members participated in two debates: abolishing the capital punishment, and abolishing Christmas celebrations. Who would have thought women could be so progressive in a rural state like West Virgina? During the 1930s, some program topics included astronomy, comparative religions, governments of nations, and the potential of atomic energy. Some members wanted to discuss the WWII, but they lacked knowledge about the war in Europe. Some of the books exchanged by members included Bess Streeter Aldrich's bestsellers A Lantern in Her Hand and A White Bird Flying; Obscure Destinies by Willa Cather; The Good Earth by West Virginia native Pearl Buck; White Fang by Jack London; and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. There are numerous photographs of the Ingleside book club members of the past and almost all of them are white. It partly reflects the institutional racism that existed among women’s clubs that operated at the total exclusion of native Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans. Morgantown is the home of West Virginia University, and the book club could have been a little more inclusive. On a positive note, the Ingleside members successfully participated in a community-wide effort to bring African American poet Langston Hughes and speak to them at the book club in 1944. He was a social activist, novelist, playwright, columnist, and one of the innovators of the literary art called jazz poetry. He was well known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.