Welcome to the Guild House Hotel
where history was made
Our story begins in the early 1880s, at a moment the nation was speeding toward a progressive new century.
Well, some of the nation was speeding forward — for American women, progress was still a struggle.
They couldn’t vote, couldn’t own property once married, and were regularly refused service in hotels, clubs,
restaurants and stores … unless, of course, they were accompanied by a man. And even as more and more women had
begun to enter the workforce, the idea of women working outside the home was still a controversial prospect.
Enter, the New Century Guild, which debuted here in Philadelphia in 1882 as one of the first groups in the United States supporting working women. The Guild’s founder, an indomitable woman named Eliza Sproat Turner, was a writer, mother, teacher, abolitionist, suffragist, and feminist with a long history of involvement in progressive causes.
Eliza envisioned a club that would take on the needs of modern working women — offering trade classes, for instance, as well as a safe, beautiful gathering space for rest, for meals, for entertainment, for activism and more. And that’s just what the Guild do over the years, playing a vital role not just in the lives of the women it served, but in the course of American history.
A Timeline of Women in Power
By the mid-1880s, the Guild, operating out of a house on the city’s north side, boasted more than 500 members. And as the organization grew in popularity, so did its support for working women. In fact, the trade classes Eliza helped launch were so popular that they eventually inspired financier Anthony J. Drexel to start his own co-ed institute in 1892 — the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry, which took on nearly all of the Guild’s trade classes and students. (Today, you know the school as Drexel University.)
Meantime, Guild members also published reports on the labor conditions in local mills, stores and factories; they put on musical and theatrical performances; they even added exercise classes for busy working women. In 1894, the ladies began the much-loved tradition of “noon rest,” which allowed members to pop in during their lunch break and relax with friends over hot soup, tea and coffee. Given that many fine restaurants didn’t allow women to dine without a male companion, noon rest was a special perk, and, in the words of one Guild report, “a blessed little oasis in the rushing life of [a] business day.”
By the time Eliza died in 1903, her group had become a vital, engaged part of Philadelphia driven by some of the city’s most impressive women. The small fortune Eliza willed the Guild upon her death helped the members achieve their next goal: the 1906 purchase of an 1850s Italianate rowhome at 1307 Locust Street — the very building that now houses our Guild House Hotel.
The new headquarters was a dream come true for the women of the Guild, or, as they put it: “We feel that we have finally attained what our dear Guild Mother had in mind — a restful place for the brain-weary business woman; a home where every member will feel that she is a necessary part of the Home Beautiful.”
The New Century Guild spent many more fruitful years here on Locust Street, offering a haven for women navigating the changing world and a hub for the women who were driving the change. Members — many of whom rallied around the most progressive causes of the day, from women’s suffrage to labor reform — dined here together, organized for their causes, sat in on lectures, worked for charities, and generally looked after one another.
Throughout the second half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the Guild would shift into many different iterations. But its legacy as one of the more remarkable women’s groups in America was long ago cemented, and some 9,000 women have been a part of this slice of history since Eliza and her friends first had a vision nearly 150 years ago.
Today, the New Century Guild’s “home beautiful” — now a National Historic Landmark — has been lovingly refurbished and brought into the 21st century as Guild House, where guests enjoy all the comforts and amenities of a modern, gracious “invisible service” hotel. And yet we proudly remain a piece of history preserved, a symbol of the independence that defined the women who once gathered here. Each room in our hotel pays special homage to the ladies of the Guild. We invite you to explore their stories and to take advantage of every comfort in our Guild House, which we hope will be your own “blessed little oasis” in Philadelphia.
Thanks to the following sources for information on the history of the New Century Guild: The 100th Anniversary Booklet of 1982, courtesy of the New Century Guild; the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Invisible Philadelphia, Jean Barth Toll (Editor), Mildred S. Gillam (Editor); and the National Park Service.
