The American Woman's Club of Shanghai started on Noveenber 28, 1898, at the home. of Mrs. Goodnow, at the American Consulate, 5 Kiukiang Road, with a little group of five women who wished to form a reading circle. These women—Mrs. Elizabeth Goodnow, Mrs. J. C. Ferguson, Mrs. Alice Rich, Mrs. V. G. Lyman and Miss Silver—had as their object "to obtain a higher, broader and wiser culture, intellectual and moral, and to unite more closely the American community of Shang-} hai. They designated themselves' as "The American Woman's Literary Society," admitted any American woman to their fellowship, and enrolled 29 members who met during the first year on the first and third Mondays of the month, "at three o'clock sharp."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.