The Woman's Club of Fort Worth is one of the city's oldest membership organizations, formed in 1923 by the members of several existing woman's clubs. The Woman's Club complex comprises eight historic buildings on Fort Worth's Near Southside and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017. As with many woman's clubs in the United States, the Woman's Club of Fort Worth has its roots in the Progressive Movement, with its original mission of "the cultural and civic advancement of Fort Worth; and the study of literature, history, science, painting, music, and other fine arts." History Local businesswoman Anna Shelton (1861-1939) recognized the need to bring together Fort Worth's many disparate woman's clubs into one umbrella organization with a shared physical space. Representatives of eleven local woman's clubs met at the First Christian Church in January 1923 to form the new organization; the eleven charter clubs included the Fort Worth Federation of Women's Clubs, the Woman's Wednesday Club, the Monday Book Club, '93 Club, Sorosis Club, Shakespeare Club, Penelope Club, Euterpean Club (named after the Greek muse, Euterpe), History Club, College Women's Club, and the Harmony Club. Both the Fort Worth Federation of Women's Clubs and Sorosis Clubs were established members of the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs. The Fort Worth Garden Club was organized in 1926 under the auspices of The Woman's Club but did not become a formal member. A member of the '93 Club, Sorosis Club, and state representative at national women's club conventions, Anna Shelton became the club's first president in 1923, a position she held until shortly before her death in 1939. The same year, Etta O. Newby, a Fort Worth woman who was not a member of any woman's clubs, donated a residence on Pennsylvania Avenue in Fort Worth's Quality Hill neighborhood to the organization in memory of her late husband. The mansion was then occupied by military personnel as the United States Office of Alien Property Custodian had assumed ownership of the property when its German owners were stranded in Europe during World War I. The deed of gift transferring ownership of the building, to be named the William G. Newby Memorial Building, to the Woman's Club limited its use to white women engaging in educational and cultural activities; the deed also forbade drinking, smoking, and gambling on the premises. Perhaps remarkably, Newby's smoking ban was the only controversial term