No doubt, Miss Augusta Yates and her colleagues - who in 1893 met in the home of her sister Mary Ella Aiken at 215 West Main Street to organize what would become The Wednesday Club - would be amazed at their legacy.  Over 115 years later, their inaugural vision of civic outreach and self improvement, based at the corner of Main at Holbrook Street for nearly 90 years, continues to thrive. What began as members sharing programs in private homes has expanded over the decades as guest lecturers, artists, and other notable persons, some of international acclaim, inspire a current membership of 484 local women.

As early as 1902, the group's social consciousness led to an investigation of the sanitary conditions of Danville's public schools.  During both World wars, club volunteers maintained open houses for soldiers passing through Danville, with members serving as hostesses for USO activities.  As membership grew, The Wednesday Club purchased in 1922 its first clubhouse, a former Westbrook home at 1002 Main Street, now the site of the present Williamsburg-Revival brick building erected in 1970.

In 1927, the Club established a Crippled Children's Clinic, later the Samual Newman Clinic, for orthopedic services.  Reflecting national momentum for the "public libraries movement" - a cause shared by many Southern women's groups prior to the First World War - The Wednesday Club helped sustain The Danville Library Association's goal to create the city's first free public library, which opened in the former Sutherlin Mansion on January 1, 1928.

The Wednesday Club continues to be guided by the words of an early president and charter member, Mrs. Walter Paxton:  "With a purpose larger than accomplishments, we are working not only for today but for tomorrow ... not merely for ourselves, but for those who are to follow after us.  We are organized not to do little things but to do big things ... limited [only] by our strength and our means ... a union of force [for] that knowledge which tends toward greater happiness, better citizenship, life more abundant and finer living."

During this special open house, not only will visitors see handsome rooms appointed with architectural elements and large mirrors from the original 1880s Westbrook clubhouse, but also be able to examine special displays of club memorabilia and history.  These materials outline the influence of the Club and reflect, more generally, over a century of the city's evolution.