Civic Activism
In Seattle, Landes was active in women's organizations, including the Women's University Club, the Women's Century Club, and the Women's Auxiliary of University Congregational Church. She was president of the Washington State chapter of the League of Women Voters.
In 1921, as president of the Seattle Federation of Women's Clubs, she orchestrated a weeklong Women's Educational Exhibit for Washington Manufacturers. Staffed by more than 1,000 clubwomen, it bolstered the spirits of the business community during a period of severe recession. That year, Landes was appointed by the city mayor to serve on a commission studying unemployment, the only woman on the five-member commission.
In 1922, Landes organized "The Women's Civic League" (renamed the "Women's City Club" in 1923). The purpose of the club was to educate women about local, state, national and world politics, and in cooperation with other organizations, to work towards securing the welfare of the city and improving civic conditionsWithin a year it had more than 500 members.
Read more about this topic: Bertha Knight Landes
Famous quotes containing the word civic:
“But look what we have built ... low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace.... Cultural centers that are unable to support a good bookstore. Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums.... Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)