To the city of Oakland goes the honor of organizing the first women's club in California, The Ebell, in 1876. Others followed and as early as 1892 a loose federation of church, club, fraternal and temperance societies was launched in Los Angeles at a meeting participated in by seven hundred women, called the Parliament of Southern California.
In 1893 added impetus was given the club movement at the Columbia Exposition held in Chicago with three California women present as delegates - Mrs. Caroline M. Severance, Mrs. Sarah B Cooper and Mrs. Kate Tupper Galvin. A San Francisco woman, Mrs. J.W. Orr also attended and returned home determined to give California women the opportunity for group development.
The early suffrage leaders in San Francisco were fortunately situated and were well known in the East and had official connection with the National Woman's Suffrage Association. One of the direct results of the suffrage campaign was the founding in 1897, of the California Club as a civic club in San Francisco. The object of the club was to "create a center of thought and action among the women for the promotion of whatever tends to the best interest of the city and its people." The charter list closed with a membership of 500. This, the first purely civic club of California, was destined to be the largest club to enter the Federation with a national, state and city legislative program.
Also in 1897 a number of clubs in the San Joaquin Valley united under the name of San Joaquin Valley Federation. In 1898 San Diego formed a County Federation. These early movements and federations created the desire and made possible the rapid and successful organization in CFWC.
In 1899 Mrs. Charles Henrotin of Chicago, who organized state federations within the General Federation, visited California to present the subject: California was ready.
On January 17, 1900, a meeting of women's clubs of California was held in the Ebell Clubhouse in Los Angeles for the purpose of organizing the California Federation. On January 18th it was formed with forty clubs, representing 6,000 women participating. Mrs. Robert J. Burdette of Pasadena, acting chairman, was elected president.
The first problem concerned the size of the state and its scattered populations of 1,500,000. Only the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe Railways furnished transportation; and there was no coast route, no highway system, not even good roads. The horse was the only motive power in 1900. Eureka women wishing to participate in a convention had to actually "put to sea." It was decided to divide the state into six districts, each to be under the leadership of a district vice-president elected from her local territory.