National Council of Jewish Women Charter

In February 1910, a group of 35 women met in the vestry of the Charter Oak Temple to organize the Hartford chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women. The national organization, founded in 1893 by American-born German Jews, focused on improving the social welfare, health care, and Americanization of the East European Jewish immigrants who were settling in cities across the U.S.. The chapter helped immigrant women arriving in Hartford to find jobs, offered English and American history classes (along with child care), and established a weekly clinic on Wooster Street where mothers could get free milk for their babies as well as examinations from doctors or nurses.