DAR - Social Clubs of 1903

Members of the Beading Club, ca. 1904. This came from
collection of photographs donated by the granddaughter
of Laura Distin, pictured center.

The DAR was only one of several only social clubs in Sitka, which had a surprising number for the size of town, and indicating a significant amount of leisure time for those condidered part of society.

Other clubs and societies active at the turn of the century included the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, formed in Sitka in 1888 and was active until 1923, the Friendly Society, Arctic Brotherhood, Fire Brigade, the Society of Alaskan Natural History and Ethnology (organized on the campus of the Sitka Industrial and Training School, later to be called Sheldon Jackson School), the Ku Klux Klan*, Loyal Order of the Moose, and the Masons.

Photo by E.W. Merrill: Arctic Brotherhood, ca. 1909.

The Arctic Brotherhood was established in 1902. By 1920, a reporter commented in the October issue of The Pathfinder, “If one wishes to be considered at all conventional in a social sense in Sitka he early becomes a member of this Club.”The Presbyterian Church had a temperance society, as did St. Michael’s Church, in the form of St. Michael’s Brotherhood and St. Michael’s Sisterhood.

The Alaska Native Brotherhood and Alaska Native Sisterhood have been said to have been modeled on some of these organizations.

* This club may not have had quite the same goals as the KKK in the lower 48; its membership roster contains the names of many mixed race members of Sitka society

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