Call Number:

1981

Repository:

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Extent:

3.0 linear feet (; 8 boxes)

Language:

English

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate cited item or series here], Contemporary Club (Philadelphia, Pa.) records (Collection 1981), The Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Date:

1886-1952, undated (Bulk 1886-1932)

Creator:

Contemporary Club (Philadelphia, Pa.) and Oakley, Thorton, 1881-1953.

Abstract:

The Contemporary Club was organized in 1886 to hold discussions on outstanding questions of the day and to present scholarly papers by public figures. Membership was open to men and women, most of whom were distinguished in the academic, artistic, and literary worlds of Philadelphia. Correspondence dating from 1886 to 1952 makes up the bulk of the papers. It includes outgoing correspondence of club presidents, incoming correspondence of individuals invited to speak, and miscellaneous correspondence to Thornton Oakley and other club officers. Among the other papers are executive committee minutes (1894-1919), photographs, year books, lists of members and historical sketches, and other miscellaneous items.

In October 1886, three local men -- George M. Gould, Horace Traubel, and S. Burns Weston -- met to discuss the formation of a social and literary club in Philadelphia. On November 3, 1886, the first meeting of the yet-to-be-named Contemporary Club was held at the Philadelphia Ethical Society. In addition to the three founding members, the meeting was also attended by the reverends J. H. Clifford and N. A. Haskill. At that first meeting, the group came to terms over a few basic rules. The club would be open to both men and women of any profession, and meetings were to be held monthly during the winter "season" of November to April.

Word of the new club quickly spread, and at its second meeting in December 1886, attendance quadrupled from five to twenty. This time the group met at the New Century Club, and the members discussed a paper by Reverence Clifford titled "The New Conditions of Intellectual Fellowship." At the group's third meeting in January 1887, club officers were named, with Dr. Daniel G. Brinton being elected president, and a draft constitution was drawn up. The club also formalized itself with a title: the Contemporary Club.

Throughout the late ninteenth century, the club grew in popularity and boasted a couple hundred members at the turn of the twentieth century. Each month, the Contemporary Club hosted speakers, some of whom came with or developed notable careers, such as poet Walt Whitman, Arctic explorer Robert E. Peary, and Woodrow Wilson, then a professor at Princeton University. The group also met in several different locations during its formative years. In addition to the New Century Club, the Contemporary Club met at the Union League, the Bellevue Hotel, and enjoyed extended stays at the Haseltine Art Galleries at 1416-18 Chestnut Street, and the Philadelphia Art Club, whose building was once located at 220 South Broad Street.

Although the club had allowed women from the start, it wasn't until the twentieth century that the club elected its first female president: Agnes Repplier, a popular Philadelphia essayist, in 1904. Later women presidents included women's rights activist Sarah Yorke Stevenson (1914), artist Violet Oakley (1925), education advocate Lucy Wilson (1935), and Katherine McBride (1950), then president of Bryn Mawr College.

The club remained quite active through World War II. But after the war, membership apparently began to dwindle, and the club met with financial hardship. These factors may have contributed to the club ceasing operations sometime in the early 1950s.

The records of the Contemporary Club of Philadelphia are housed in eight boxes and span from the club's formation in 1886 to 1952, around the time of its demise. The records are almost purely administrative. Outside of some clippings pertaining to the club's executives and its members, there are no personal materials in the collection.

Comprising the first two boxes (Boxes 1-2) are outgoing letters from the club's presidents. They are arranged in folders chronologically, starting with the club's first president, Daniel G. Brinton (1886-1888, 1890), and ending with its last president, Dr. Percy R. Stockman (1951). There are no materials in this section from two of the club's presidents: Joseph S. Harris (1903) and Edward M. Twitmyer (1950). Some of the folders also contain photographs of the individual presidents. The amount of correspondence per author varies widely -- some only have a few letters, while others have several dozen. The contents of the letters generally pertain to club matters, such as finances, membership, and speakers. Researchers may also find the occasional outgoing letter from a president in his or her folder.

Following the president's correspondence are two boxes of correspondence from people who were invited to speak before the Contemporary Club (Boxes 3-4). These letters have been grouped into folders alphabetically by speaker's last names. (Individual correspondents have been listed in the inventory of this guide and written on the folders.) This group of letters dates from 1887 to 1948 and consists mostly of replies to invitations, though some do inquire about club membership generally. There are also some letters from speakers concerning local accommodations.

Also in Box 4 as well as the first few folders of Box 5 are papers of club secretaries Sophia Wells Royce [Mrs. Talcott] Williams and William K. Huff, and club presidents S. Burns Weston and Thorton Oakley. The remainder of papers in Box 5 concern members and consist of applications and nominations, rules and regulations, ballots, remarks, clippings, and other miscellaneous items.

This collection contains a number of printed materials, including some of the club's annual reports. The reports date consecutively from 1890 to 1904 (Box 6, Folders 6-13) and from 1909 to 1912 (Box 1, folders 1-2). Other printed matter includes items authored by club members or presented by club members or guests, such as Railroads and the Public by Joseph D. Potts (1892) (Box 7, Folder 3), The Next Step in Christianity by S. D. McConnell (undated) (Box 7, Folder 8), and New Theories of Constitutional Construction by Thomas Raeburn White (undated) (Box 7, Folder 9).

The final box of the collection (Box 8) contains three volumes of handwritten meeting minutes from 1899 to 1919.