"So You've Joined a Club" by Margaret Lynch Capone

We're not finished yet with Margaret Lynch Capone (aka Mrs. Carmen Capone). She has previously appeared in these posts:

• Possibly boring book cover: "Bottle and Glass Handbook"
• Mrs. Carmen Capone's thoughts on U.S. foreign policy
• Mrs. Carmen Capone helps flustered speechmakers
• The full record on Margaret Lynch Capone

In that last post, I mentioned that she authored at least two books: So You've Joined a Club (1954) and Parliamentary Pointers (1973). Well, I have tracked down one of those books, in a world in which there can't be that many that still exist. Here, using Papergreat's standard template for such matters, is the lowdown...

• Title: So You've Joined a Club
• Subtitle: A Practical Guide for Clubwomen
• Author: Margaret Lynch Capone (1907-1998)
• Cover designer: Dave Lyons
• Publisher: Pageant Press, New York
• Dust jacket price: $2
• Publication date: 1954
• Library of Congress catalog card number: 54-7466
• Pages: 182
• Format: Hardcover
• Dust jacket excerpt: "If you are planning to join a club, or have recently become a member of one, you will find this book invaluable in making a success of your new interest. ... Written by an experienced clubwoman and public speaker, So You've Joined a Club provides the answers for the novice clubwoman who suddenly finds herself confronted with organizing a money-raising event, making a speech, or deciphering Robert's Rules of Order."
• Back cover: The back cover is all "About the Author," which helps to add to our body of knowledge about Margaret. It states:
  

  "The inspiration for So You've Joined a Club began when Margaret Lynch Capone joined a club back in 1947 and discovered how little she — and many of her fellow members — knew about club organization and procedure. Her conviction that a simple, easy guide for beginners was necessary was strengthened by the number of women she met who were anxious to be active in club work but who felt they knew too little about it.
  
  "Mrs. Capone, who was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and still makes her home there, is the wife of an attorney and the mother of three children. She has found that she can successfully combine her duties in the home with her activities as clubwoman, lecturer and parliamentarian. In addition to traveling extensively to organize new clubs, she is the Director of the International Toastmistress Clubs, public relations chairman of the Central Deanery, National Council of Catholic Women, and a member of the National Association of Parliamentarians. She also belongs to a host of other organizations."

• Chapter titles: Joining a Club, Committees, Elected Officers, Parliamentary Procedure, Club Etiquette, The Large Meeting, Decorations for Club Meetings, Program Planning, How to Get Publicity, Speech Situations, Contents, Ways of Raising Money, What to Serve, and Installation of Officers.
• First sentence: Joining a club is the surest way in the world of meeting people, making friends, and keeping young in spirit.
• Last sentence: You, above all, know the sort of cooperation that brings joy to a chairman or president; give it!
• Random sentence from the middle #1: But the other day my teen-age son reminded me that several boys he knew did not know how to hold a fork correctly, and then my husband commented that a man with whom he lunched occasionally did not know how to handle his napkin or make use of the fingerbowl.
• Random sentence from the middle #2: Newspapers do not like to print the same announcement month after month: "The Mainville Women's Club will hold its regular meeting in the Community Hall."
• Notes: Pageant Press was, indeed, a vanity publisher. In a 1958 article titled "Vanity Press Publishing," Howard A. Sullivan wrote:
  

  "Advertisig for manuscripts is not an orthodox practice in the publishing industry and to do so is a departure from tradition. But the tradition has been breached in some very reputable periodicals and the advertisements of Exposition Press, Vantage Press, and Pageant Press — to name but three, although the three most active and ambitious of the subsidy publishers — can be found regularly in the Saturday Review and Writer's Digest."

  The article goes on to state that Pageant published 112 new titles in 1956 and was on the list of just 31 houses producing 100 or more new books that year.

But wait, there's more...

This book also had some treasures tucked away inside. There's a receipt from when it was purchased for $2.10 ($2, plus 10 cents tax) in 1965 at Joseph Horne Co., which had at least eight locations in western Pennsylvania. The regional department store chain was founded in 1849 and ceased operations in 1994. There was a Horne's in the Monroeville Mall when Dawn of the Dead was filmed.

There's also a note inside. The cursive writing on it is too light for reproduction here, but I can tell you that it states:

1. Congratulate Marge on her year
2. Present Gift
3. Pass out Booklets. Go over Booklets, any corrections
New Business
1. Introduce New Girls
2. Benson Fruit Cake deal
3. Money handed in at diff. committees

I wonder if Marge is Margaret Lynch Capone? Either way, I'm sure she would have been proud about how helpful her book was.