Scope and Contents:
This collection contains ledger books of the Women's Town Club, a group which provided housing for women in Champaign, Illinois.
In 1897, the Beardsley Hotel, on the northwest corner of Hill and Neil Streets in downtown Champaign, Illinois, built an annex on its west side at 112 West Hill Street. In 1917, William B. McKinley purchased the annex and made it available to the Business Women's Club of Champaign. In 1927, shortly after his death, the building was deeded to the club's successor, the Women's Town Club. For over 30 years, the Club provided individual apartments and a common living and dining room for unmarried women.
In recent years, the building has served as a transient hotel and a furniture store, among other uses. It has accommodated the John-Paul Buzard Pipe Organ Builders on the first two floors since 1985, and since 2003, the third and fourth floors of the building have been used once again as apartment space. The building became a Champaign Landmark in 1998.
This collection consists of five ledger books which incompletely document the Club's expenses and income, mainly from room rent and meals. Residents are sometimes listed by name. The five volumes are respectively dated 1927; 1937-1938; 1937-1940; 1937-1942; and 1940-1958.
The ledger books were given by Professor Steven P. Hill to the Illinois Historical Survey, predecessor of the Illinois History and Lincoln Collections, in 1983.
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