Smaller Projects

State's Mates members assembling crafts.  The ladies often made tray favors for the nursing home and hospital patients that they visited.

In addition to their annual projects, State's Mates were involved in a variety of smaller civic acts that were aimed at providing some assistance to local organizations through volunteer work and material donations. While continuing their relations with The March of Dimes, the Dorothea Dix hospital, and other organizations at North Carolina State University, the club also worked with individuals in the Raleigh area. This involvement in smaller activities rather than annual projects was a result of declining membership within the club and a waning interest in volunteerism among the women of State's Mates.

The types of civic activities that the Mates participated in were very much tied to notions of womanhood that prevailed at the time. The members' roles at wives and mothers dictated the types of activities that they chose to participate in. Sociological studies suggest that in the era following WWII, middle-aged women were most likely to volunteer and become active civically as a result of greater ties to the community as children become involved in school.  The high rate of birth announcements in the Wagg'n Tongue and the number of officers that stepped down during their tenure due to new babies, however, suggests that the majority of mothers in State's Mates had fairly young children.

The women did, however, have a strong tie to their community despite their young children- their student husbands. State's Mates members thus had a unique relationship with the North Carolina State College community as a result of their husband's enrollment and thus became involved with it in the same way that mothers of older children became involved in the PTA-- an organization whose membership increased exponentially in the post-War era.

 

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