That’s not to indulge in nostalgia for a period of American history when women primarily led clubs rather than companies. Women frequently organized to fight for rights they had been denied by men, and they often aspired to lead charitable organizations because they were prevented from pursuing other paths. But ironically, in winning fuller equality with men, some women lost a share of the meaning and purpose that comes from life outside of productive labor. This is not a story about women’s failures, or a polemic against their advancement. It’s a cautionary tale for men and women alike. The corner office isn’t always the pinnacle of leadership. Often, the most important leadership happens in local communities.

* * *

Women’s groups haven’t just existed since America’s founding—they were instrumental in creating the nation. In her book, Natural Allies: Women’s Associations in American History, Anne Firor Scott writes that during the Revolutionary War, women “banded together to raise money, provide amenities to the soldiers, and support the movement for independence.” During the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century, “voluntary associations of all kinds proliferated, to supplement the old institutional structures of family, church, and local government.” Women often took up the causes of the “worthy” poor, especially women and children, forming organizations with elaborate names like the Female Association for Relief of the Sick Poor, and for the Education of Such Female Children as Do Not Belong To, or Are Not Provided for, by Any Religious Society.

Men formed associations, too, but they were different from those led by women. Men often did good works individually, rather than as groups, Scott wrote, and when they gave money, “they tended to make large gifts to institutions, particularly those that might bear their names.” Most of all, their civic activity was largely a form of self-advancement, Scott argued: “Benevolence figured in the building of a man’s career, both as a means of forming associations with other men and as a means of promoting a favorable public image.” But for women, participating in these organizations was their career—“an accepted extension of their defined roles as wives and mothers.”

Most importantly, these associations helped women develop a nascent sense of class and political consciousness, Scott argued. Charitable work exposed well-off white women to people of lesser means, and it offered women the chance to see themselves as independent of their husbands. As time went on, these organizations took up political causes such as suffrage, citizenship rights, and, later, equal-pay legislation, wrote the Duke University professor Kristin Goss.

As empowering as civil society was for American women, it was also constraining. “For centuries … we had this very distinct public and private realm in America,” said Melissa Deckman, a professor at Washington College. “Women were not allowed to participate in business or industry or politics. So women who had skills and time on their hands went into more civic activity.” Although groups such as the gender-integrated Independent Order of St. Luke were founded and sometimes led by black women, many of these organizations were led by white women, and “volunteering used to be in the arena of women with wealthy husbands,” said Thomas Rotolo, a professor at Washington State University. While men went off to be captains of industry, “women would stay home to deal with philanthropic activities.”