Woman's Improvement Club Clubhouse

Thomas E. Preston of Los Angeles designed the building. It is Craftsman Style with an eclectic Old English look. The clubhouse is a detached, one-story wood frame structure which is nearly T-shaped; exterior painted wood shingles sheath the walls over a beige brick foundation. Preston used an old Welsh church as inspiration for his plans. The building’s interior and exterior exhibit a simplicity that adds to its rustic charm. The clubhouse is an apt example of the Arts and Crafts movement’s penchant for a natural, yet functional, design. The only institutional example of this style in the City of Corona, this building is located on a busy Main Street corner within the Grand Boulevard circle. It continues to be a visual link to Corona’s disappearing non-residential architectural past. 

The Woman’s Improvement Club was established in 1899 as a civic organization. Originally called the Town Improvement Association, the club’s goals were to encourage city beautification, set a high moral tone for public activities, and educate its members in history, literature, and the arts. The Woman’s Improvement Club name was adopted in 1902 as a more appropriate title for the organization, firmly establishing it as one among hundreds of local women’s civic clubs springing up all over the United States during this period. The Corona WIC was often host to numerous Inland Empire and Los Angeles women’s groups. These clubs sought opportunities to visit each other for discussions of contemporary topics such as public health, conservation of natural resources, and women’s suffrage. The Woman’s Improvement Club of Corona was involved with other women’s organizations at the regional and state level through the California Federation of Women’s Clubs. 

The Club’s first activity was to revive the former Women Christian Temperance Union’s struggling reading room into a lending library. Club members offered their labor and donations until the library was established enough to merit a governmental board to administer its operation in 1900. The Woman’s Improvement Club also helped the town win a Carnegie library. Several successful projects earned the Woman’s Improvement Club of Corona a considerable voice in community politics. Club members personally planted shade trees along major thoroughfares, irrigated and planted neighborhood parks, and cleaned neglected yards and streets until a chagrined Corona Board of Trustees, or the City Council, established a permanent Sanitation Department and Parks Maintenance crew. Other ordinances initiated by the Club involved consumer rights, street lighting, and moral legislation. 

Mrs. Ella L. S. Joy, a City of Corona founder, donated two lots at Eleventh and Main Streets for the clubhouse in 1906. After the building’s construction in 1913, the clubhouse became the center for the Woman’s Improvement Club’s varied activities. Issued debated in the building were women’s rights, the temperance movement, protection of forests and wildlife, child labor, education and playgrounds, and the establishment of a California state juvenile court system. The WIC began a school lunch program, a humane society for animals, did World War I Red Cross relief work, and established the Settlement House, which is still thriving, to aid disadvantaged families. The clubhouse was home to Corona’s original Red Cross chapter (1913) and its first Girl Scouts troop (1922). During World War II, the Woman’s Improvement Club offered citizenship classes. 

Woman's Improvement Club Clubhouse, National Register of Historic Places. Accessed December 30th 2020. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123860531.

Woman's Improvement Club Clubhouse, Wikipedia. Accessed January 22nd 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman%27s_Improvement_Club_Clubhouse.