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Ozone Club records

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Held at: Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College [Contact Us]500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 19081

This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.

Overview and metadata sections

Call Number:
RG4.055
Repository:
Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College
Extent:
5 linear ft. (10 boxes and photographs)
Language:
English
Preferred Citation:
[Indicate the cited item or series here], Ozone Club Records, 1901-2001, RG 4/055, Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College.
Date:
1901-2001 (inclusive)
Creator:
Ozone Golf Club and Niblick Club
Abstract:
The Ozone Club was a golf association for Quaker men in the Philadelphia area. It was established in 1901 and included in its membership the presidents of Swarthmore College and prominent Quakers. The Niblick Club which was set-off from the Ozone Club in the 1920s, also was a men's golf association with Quaker membership. The Ozone Club records include minute books, correspondence and miscellaneous papers. A small amount of records from the Niblick Club is also included with the collection, including annual meeting programs and photos.

The Club was founded by Walter P. Stokes, Walter Smedley, and James G. Biddle as an afternoon of golf once a month with Quaker friends. The success of the group spawned additional social golfing clubs - the Divotee (1921) whose first president was D. Robert Yarnall, then the Niblick Club, first president Benjamin S. Thorp, and a woman's group, the Hit or Miss Club. The groups mingled Hicksite and Orthodox Friends, but membership was largely Hicksite. In the early years, there was a close relationship with the meeting for worship in Atlantic City and the hotels and golf courses located there. Until the 1970s, a requirement was membership in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, but gradually the requirement was loosened to include persons with "friendly connection."

A popular annual event was the match between the Ozone and Divotees Clubs formally began in 1955.

The Ozone Club records include minute books, correspondence, and miscellaneous papers. A small amount of records from the Niblick Club is also included with the collection, including annual meeting programs and photos.

The collection is divided into six series:

  1. History of Ozone Club
  2. Reports
  3. Secretary's Minute Books
  4. Miscellaneous
  5. Correspondence files
  6. The Niblick Club Records, 1949-1959

Many of the photographs and scores were reproduced in the book Down the Fairways.

Donor: Ozone Club, 1968, 1975.

Donor: Niblick Club material, gift of Anna Pettit Broomell.

Donor: Niblick Annual Meeting brochure, 1925, gift of Charles T. Jenkins, 1925.

Donor: Ozone Club photographs, correspondence and ephemera, gift of Ozone Club. Acc. 2003.003.

Donor: Niblick Club photographs, 1950-1958, gift of Margaret Lippincott, Acc. 2011.034.

Donor: Smedley family, 2018.055

When received from the Ozone Club in 1969, the records were arranged and placed in document boxes in RG/4. Two collection numbers were assigned, Ozone Club Records, RG 4/055, and Niblick Club Records, RG 4/052, but both were included in a one bibliographic description. The finding aids were united into a single collection in 1999 as RG4/055. In 2018, records stored at the Smedley family home were added to the collection. Three generations of Smedley had been active members of the Club.

See also published histories of the Club:

  1. Down the Fairway and in the Rough with the Ozone Club, 1901-27 (GV 969.0991927)
  2. Down the Fairway and in the Rough with the Ozone Club, 1957 (GV 969.099 1957)
  3. Down the Fairway and in the Rough with the Ozone Club, 1901-2000 (GV969 .O99 2001)

The photographs, a small number of which were previously stored with the collection, were removed in 2019 to create a picture collection.

People
Organization
Subject

Publisher
Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College
Finding Aid Author
Susanna Morikawa
Finding Aid Date
1999
Sponsor
Encoding made possible by a grant by the Gladys Kriebel Delmas Foundation to the Philadelphia Consortium of Special Collections Libraries
Access Restrictions

Collection is open for research.

Use Restrictions

Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce items in this collection beyond the bounds of Fair Use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder or their heirs/assigns. See http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-RUU/1.0/.

Collection Inventory

History.
Box 1

Annual reports, 1901-1911, 1956, 1962.
Box 1
Physical Description

printed booklet

Treasurer's report, 1/5/1917.
Box 1
Golf match score records, 1911, 1916, 1916-1918, 1919, 1922, 1925-1927, 1932.
Box 1

Secretary's Minute Books, 1901-1909.
Box 1
Secretary's Minute Books, 1910-1915.
Box 1
Secretary's Minute Books, 1916-1922.
Box 1
Secretary's Minute Books, 1922-10/20/1926.
Box 1
Secretary's Minute Books, 11/1926-1930.
Box 1
Secretary's Minute Books, 1932-1936.
Box 1
Secretary's Minute Books, 1939-1942.
Box 2
Secretary's Minute Books, 1943-1945.
Box 2
Secretary's Minute Books, 1946-1948.
Box 2
Physical Description

2 vols.

Secretary's Minute Books, 1949-1951.
Box 2
Secretary's Minute Books, 1952-1954.
Box 2
Secretary's Minute Books, 1955-1955.
Box 2
Secretary's Minute Books, 1958-1960.
Box 3
Secretary's Minute Books, 1961-1963.
Box 3
Secretary's Minute Books, 1964-1966.
Box 3
Secretary's Minute Books, 1967-1969.
Box 3

Copy of "Ozone Oracle", 1/22/1915.
Box 3
Tribute to Samuel L. Allen (1841-1918), and note from his wife.
Box 3
Tribute to J. Haines Lippincott.
Box 3
Invitations, speech notes, poems, etc., probably for annual dinners.
Box 3
Menus for Ozone Club dinners, 1924, 1927, 1928.
Box 3
Handicaps, 1932.
Box 3
Telegram, signed Leeds, n.d.
Box 3
Correspondence and papers concerning Club history,, 2001-2003.
Box 3
Scope and Contents

Club president Carl Berlinger's brief history of the Club, correspondence concerning proposed "memoirs" book, and emails to Golf Journal. The Journal ceased publication in 2003 before it could feature an article on the Club. Also, an issue of Philadelphia Golfer, Oct. 2001, with an article on Quaker golf clubs. Acc. 2003.031

Notes of interest for history , 1927-1956.
Box 4
Scope and Contents

Poems, obituaries, correspondence, memoirs compiled as reference for histories

Ozone scores, schedules, etc. , 1938.
Box 4
Ozone scores, schedules, etc. , 1939.
Box 4
Ozone scores, schedules, etc. , 1940.
Box 4
Secretary's notebook, 1939-1945.
Box 4
Ozone scores, schedules, etc. , 1940.
Box 4
Scope and Contents

Members expressed concern that member Walter Buzby gave the Club complimentary accommodations at the Dennis for the annual meeting. Some felt it was an awkward arrangement and preferred to pay.

40th anniversary correspondence and celebration, 1939-1941.
Box 4
Scope and Contents

With comments by Morris Leeds. Correspondence mentions mix of Orthodox and Hicksites, having started with an largely Orthodox membership, the officers by mid-century were Hicksite.

Donations to Atlantic City Meeting, 1940.
Box 4
Scope and Contents

Walter Buzby of Atlantic City Meeting and president of the Dennis Hotel solicited donations from the Club to the Meeting which members attended during the Ozone annual meeting.

Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1941.
Box 4
Donations to Atlantic City Meeting, 1941-1942.
Box 5
Scope and Contents

Correspondence with Walter Buzby

Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1942.
Box 5
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1943-1945.
Box 5
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1945-1946.
Box 5
Secretary's notebook, 1946-1950.
Box 5
Scope and Contents

Includes the duties assigned to the Secretary. Compiled Club statistics, etc.

Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1947.
Box 5
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1948.
Box 5
Scope and Contents

Treasurer's file, scores, correspondence and donations to Atlantic City Meeting

Secretary's notebook, 1949-1951.
Box 6
Scope and Contents

Includes the duties assigned to the Secretary. Compiled Club statistics, etc.

Ozone correspondence, scores, schedules, 1950-1951.
Box 6
Secretary's notebook, 1951-1955.
Box 6
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1952.
Box 6
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1953.
Box 6
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1954.
Box 6
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1955.
Box 6
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1956.
Box 6
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1957.
Box 6
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1958.
Box 7
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1959.
Box 7
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1960.
Box 7
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1961-1962.
Box 7
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1963-1964.
Box 7
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1965-1966.
Box 7
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1967-1969.
Box 7
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1970.
Box 7
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1971.
Box 7
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1972.
Box 7
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1973-1974.
Box 8
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1975.
Box 8
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1976.
Box 8
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1977-1981.
Box 8
Scope and Contents

At the Club meeting of December 1, 1981, it was noted that membership selections had been made by the officers and it was necessary to be a member of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. However, in the past ten years or so, many exceptions had been made for a "friendly connection," rather than only Quakers.

Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1982-1983.
Box 8
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1984.
Box 8
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1985.
Box 8
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1986-1987.
Box 8
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1988.
Box 9
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1989.
Box 9
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1990.
Box 9
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1991-1993.
Box 9
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1994.
Box 9
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1995.
Box 9
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1996.
Box 9
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1997.
Box 1997
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1998.
Box 9
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1999.
Box 9
Ozone scores, schedules, members' trip to Scotland, 2000.
Box 10
Ozone scores, schedules, etc., 1921-1996.
Box 10
Ozone vs. Divotees, 1925-1993.
Box 10
Membership lists, officers to 1995.
Box 10
Historical notes compiled for Down the Fairway, 1926-2000.
Box 10

Annual Meeting booklet, 1925.
Box 3
Program of 27th Annual Meeting of The Niblick Club, 12/9/1949.
Box 3
Remarks by the Secretary at the 33th Annual Meeting of the Club, 12/2/1955.
Box 3
Letter from Secretary to members, 10/11/1956, 12/16/1956.
Box 3
Match score sheet, 10/9/1956.
Box 3
Niblick Club songs.
Box 3
Letter from William K. Alsop, Jr. to "Anna" [Broomell], 1/8/1959.
Box 3
Group photographs of Club members, 1950, 1951, 1958, n.d.
Box 3

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