National League of American Pen Women. Western New York Branch

The National League of American Pen Women was founded in 1897 with the purpose of encouraging and promoting women artists and writers. A group of women artists and writers, headed by Marion Longfellow O'Donohue, niece of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, saw the need to establish a club to support women writers and artists. On June 26, 1897 the National League of American Pen Women was formed. Since its founding, the National League of American Pen Women has grown into a significant organization of artists, authors, poets, composers, musicians and lecturers headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Western New York Branch of the National League of American Pen Women was established in the fall of 1919 by Effie Farnham Burns, a Buffalo teacher and an ardent suffragette. On November 27, 1920, Mrs. William Atherton Du Puv, the national president of the National League of American Pen Women, presented the Western New York Branch with its charter at a gala celebrating the first anniversary of the branch's formation. Over the years the branch has encouraged and promoted women artists and writers in western New York through activities, lectures, seminars, workshops, art festivals and poetry readings. A monthly radio program was also hosted from 1929 to about 1942 and it also hosted a variety of art and literature competitions, such as the Play Contest, which ran from 1948 to about 1953, and was sponsored by Lewis Fisher of the Lake Shore Play House.