Founded by Lizzie Crozier French in 1885, Ossoli Circle of Knoxville started as a reading circle. It was referred to as a “circle” because women at that time were not allowed to form clubs, according to Ossoli Circle President Jan Coley. The term “circle” emphasized equality among members without hierarchy, where each voice carried equal weight. Ossoli was the first women’s circle in Tennessee and later, the first in the South to become a charter member of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs (GFWC).
Mary Boyce Temple, the first president, named the circle after Margaret Fuller Ossoli, a 19th-century feminist and journalist. From its earliest days, Ossoli Circle, like all GFWC affiliates, has been dedicated to civic involvement and access to opportunity. They have advocated for improved education for women, helped open the University of Tennessee to female students in the 1890s, supported rural schools, established traveling libraries and promoted vocational training for girls.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the clubhouse was built for Ossoli Circle in 1933, hosting weekly Monday morning meetings from September through May and fundraising events, dinners and seasonal parties throughout the year. “Our foremothers raised the money themselves to build the house through bake sales and other kinds of grassroots efforts during the Great Depression,” Coley explains. Like all historic buildings, the clubhouse is an expense to maintain. This past year, they completed a facelift of the exterior, a renovation of the commercial kitchen and rewiring of the entire house, supported solely by Circle fundraising efforts.
Ossoli has continued its legacy of advocating for women’s rights and access to opportunities into the 21st century. “We’re very proud to be a Founding Donor of the Women’s Suffrage Museum. We helped sponsor a reception at our clubhouse honoring the speaker, Ellie Smeal, for the annual 2025 Febb Burn’s Dinner. Wanda Sobieski, Founder of the Suffrage Coalition and the Women’s Suffrage Museum, is an Ossoli Circle member,” she adds. “Several of our members have been with the Coalition since its founding, and we’re active in supporting projects like the Tennessee Woman Suffrage Memorial and the museum.”
Over the past five years, which included the challenging Covid era, Ossoli has maintained holding member meetings, and fundraising and volunteering efforts for many East Tennessee nonprofits, logging nearly 40,000 volunteer hours and over $400,000 in donations and in-kind donations. Coley explains, “Ossoli Circle is much like a clearinghouse with a vast array of projects that benefit the arts, education and health as we serve our communities. Our members can find opportunities that fit their interests, talents, and allotment of time to commit within their schedule. Our diverse range of projects offers members flexibility. Some are group service projects, while other projects allow members to participate individually.”
Currently, the Ossoli Circle website lists over 30 East Tennessee nonprofits that members support.
“These include supporting Dolly Parton’s Children’s Hospital, collecting supplies for local animal shelters, collecting eyeglasses and hearing aids for the Lions Club, and supporting domestic violence shelters and help programs, to mention a few,” Coley says. “Ossoli has a mix of sustaining projects, including Alzheimer’s events and a long-time service relationship with the Appalachian Assistance Program, supporting the Unicorn Fund serving Scott and Morgan counties,” she continues. “Each year we fill Christmas shoeboxes, donate gently used clothes for their boutique and provide two $1,500 college scholarships.” Another favorite member partnership is Friends of the Library, which supports community libraries through book donations.
Coley says that each year the president gets to choose a special project. “I’m very excited about my choice–an educational project for the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont. In April, Tremont held a natural science workshop for teachers in the Knoxville area. We assembled 30 teachers’ kits with all the supplies needed to implement the workshop curriculum, Playgrounds as Classrooms Playbook, for each classroom of thirty children.” A retired high school science teacher and adjunct college professor, Coley continues, “Many times, teachers attend workshops and return to the classroom without the materials to implement the activities. We supplied magnifying glasses, rulers, bug boxes, mats, whiteboards, insect, wildflower and butterfly guides and spring scales for each teacher. This is a prototype teaching kit for Tremont, and it’s very satisfying that we could fund and create kits for each teacher.”
It’s an experiential example that, no matter what the project, Ossoli Circle has members with specific experience and expertise to create successful service outcomes. “We appeal to women of all ages and interests, and that’s the reason we’re so excited to welcome new generations of young women and professional women, as well as women looking for community.”
Celebrating the significant contributions Ossoli Circle of Knoxville has made to the community for 140 years is especially relevant for the May Ladies issue. “We have the kindest, most compassionate members who cross all backgrounds, vocations, experiences, interests and talents,” Coley says. “What they always have in common is placing a high value on making volunteer service a priority in their own lives as they help make life better for so many others.” Coley invites interested women to reach out to the membership chair for more information. GFCWCOssoliCircle.org.