These women, who were probably silk workers, were members of the women's division of the Arbeiter Turnverein, the Workers Gymnastic Club. A belief in physical fitness for women as well as men was strong in the Paterson German-American community, where men's and women's turnvereins were popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The Women’s Project of New Jersey, Inc. (WPNJ) was a nonprofit organization formed in 1984 by a group of scholars, librarians, teachers and community activists to retrieve and disseminate New Jersey women’s history.  It was incorporated in 1985 in the state of New Jersey and dissolved as a corporation in 2008.   Its research and organizational papers are held by Special Collections, Alexander Library, Rutgers University.

WPNJ’s initial project was the researching and writing of Past and Promise: Lives of New Jersey Women, a comprehensive, illustrated reference volume on the history of women in New Jersey.  The hardcover edition of the book was published in 1990. A paperback edition, with new preface by Editor-in-Chief Dr. Joan Burstyn of Syracuse University (formerly of Rutgers University) and a necrology of subjects deceased since publication of the hardcover, was published in 1997.  Copyright to these volumes is held by the New Jersey Historical Society.

In 1998, WPNJ launched a website on New Jersey Women’s History to augment and further the research begun in 1984.  This website is now edited and managed by the Alice Paul Institute of Mount Laurel, NJ. 

The contents of this site are for educational and non-commercial use only.  (See terms and conditions)