Members of Rotary

Looking Back in History
Women Formed a Rotary Club in 1911

by Rachael E. Martin , Club #25 Historian

Did you know that Duluth women had a real Rotary Club in 1911? Here's an article from the 1912 Duluth News Tribune:
 

"A woman's Rotary club, not the auxiliary society formed of the wives of Rotarians, but a real Rotary club of women in business or professions, and a thriving club, too, exists in Duluth. There is only one other woman's Rotary club in America and that is in Minneapolis."
 

"Mrs. Irene Buell is president of the Duluth club; Dr. Sarah L. McClaran, Vice President; Dr. Mary Conrad, Secretary and Treasurer; and Mrs. Jane Everington Scully, Chairman of the Membership Committee."
 

"The club was established about a year ago and it is said that others, modeled after it, are about to be formed in other cities."
 

Who was Mrs. Irene Buell, president of this first Duluth women's Rotary club? A Duluth Herald article from 1910 states that she was the first woman attorney in Duluth. The door of office 419 in the Lonsdale building read "I. C. Buell, Attorney at Law".
 

Mrs. Buell came to Duluth in 1910 from the Twin Cities, where she graduated from the Minnesota school of law and from the St. Paul law school. She was admitted to the Minnesota bar and practiced law in the Twin Cities for four years. She was the only full time woman attorney in the Twin Cities at that time. Three other women had passed the Minnesota bar, but combined their profession with other work.

The reporter quoted Mrs. Buell in the 1910 article. "There is a prejudice, of course, against women in the profession. And in St. Paul it is very marked, in fact sometimes they're not quite courteous. I haven't found it so thus far in my week long residence in Duluth. Everyone has been quite delightful. And by the way I never saw, any place, so many men remove their hats in elevators in which there are women nor so many who hold the doors open for women. It's unusual, I think. I thought at first it must be some mistake, but it doesn't seem to be."
 

Mrs. Buell's father and brother were lawyers, and she wanted to be a lawyer, too, ever since she was a child. She told the reporter, "But I shouldn't want my son to become one. The law is too jealous a mistress. Graduation from a law school is the most positive commencement in the real sense of the word that I know. Study is everlasting and in the law you must not only know one thing but everything, if you would represent your client well. It is a never ending grind. I think there is easier work to be done."
 

With the talented Mrs. Buell as president of Duluth's first woman's Rotary club, surely their future was promising. What became of Mrs. Buell and the woman's Rotary club of Duluth? Hopefully, further research will give us the answers.