Abstract:
Sallie Southall Cotton married a Confederate Army officer after the Civil War and raised a family. Most women of that period settled in to do “womanly things†after their families had grown, but Mrs. Cotton embarked on a career of public service. She felt that working together women could achieve great things. In 1902, she was a force in founding the North Carolina Federation of Women's Clubs, an organization that enabled women statewide to speak as a group for public school improvement, prison reform, and aid to the poor and elderly.