Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/426

Rh organization, almost simultaneously, of the Cincinnati Women's Club and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestral Association. To-day, the club with several hundred members, is the proud possessor of the first Women's Club House in Ohio, whose every line of architecture and decoration expresses the refined taste and broad culture of its members. The Symphony Orchestra is the pride of Ohio as well as Cincinnati.

About 1893, Mr. Ralph Radcliffe-Whitehead, a wealthy Englishman, who had been a friend of Ruskin, and intimately associated with English arts and crafts leaders, conceived the idea of founding in America an arts and crafts village, in hope of doing something toward making American life less restless, less self-conscious, and less ugly. With this end in view, he bought about 1,200 acres of land on the southern slope of the Catskills, in the town of Woodstock, New York, and christened this tract "Byrdcliffe," and invited all those who desired to carry on artistic pursuits, and at the same time live simply, to come and live in the simple houses which he had built on this tract. Here was established a library, an assembly, a metal shop, and nearly a score of other buildings to be used as studios, shops, boarding houses, and residences. "Byrdcliffe" has produced a distinct type of hand-made decorative furniture. They have done some good metal work and rug weaving. This colony was repeated in the one established in July, 1901, called the Rose Valley Association, chartered as a stock company, with a capital of $25,000, for the purpose of encouraging the manufacture of such articles involving artistic handicraft, as are used in the finishing, decorating, and furnishing of houses. A property was purchased called Rose Valley, located along Ridley Creek, near the city of Moylan, about a dozen miles