Jonathan Club
The Jonathan Club is a private social club in Los Angeles, California, U.S. It maintains two clubhouses, one in downtown Los Angeles at 545 South Figueroa Street (built in 1924) and one on the beach in Santa Monica. The Los Angeles headquarters has dining and residential facilities, ballrooms, a health club, a library and other accoutrements. Membership in the club is by invitation only. For most of its history, the club admitted only white men, but since 1987 it has also admitted women and members of non-white groups.
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[edit] History
The club is believed to be named after Jonathan Trumbull, advisor to George Washington. However historical evidence supports the club's roots as being named after Brother Jonathan, the caricature predecessor to Uncle Sam. According to an undated but recent publication of the club titled Jonathan: A Very Special Club, the club was founded in September 1895 by a group of men who had been active in a Los Angeles marching society. There is also evidence that the club's origin was tied to a group of Los Angeles Republicans who supported William McKinley's presidential campaign.[citation needed]
From that beginning has evolved today's Jonathan Club, a social organization serving the widely differing needs of its many members. This diversity, combined with the character and spirit of the members make the Jonathan Club unique.[citation needed]
The club was a center of Los Angeles business and social life, but its members also engaged in spirited frivolity.[citation needed]
Throughout the later 20th century there developed many activities geared to the male members, their children, and the women in their lives. In the first seven days of December 1940, for example, the club featured a "Key Men's Breakfast, a "Deep South" chicken dinner, "Distinguished Guest Speakers," swimming for both men and women, an "Army, Navy, Marine Round-Table Luncheon," a family night with a buffet dinner, bridge and dancing, a stag football luncheon and a Saturday-night "Informal Dancing Frolic."
One of the oldest clubs within the Club is the Breakfast Club, which first met in 1935. The Breakfast Club meets every Tuesday at the Downtown facility and hosts speakers ranging from sports, politics, business and entertainment. It is thought to be the oldest and most revered speakers' forum on the West Coast.
When the Jonathan Club originated, only white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant men were able to join. The club was alleged to have maintained discriminatory admission and access policies based on race and sex throughout the 20th century and into the 21st. The club admitted its first African-American and female members in 1987.
[edit] Locations
In 1905, the club was headquartered in the monumental new Pacific Electric Building at 610 S. Main Street, which was the transportation hub for Southern California. According to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, "the top three floors of the building housed the exclusive and lavishly adorned Jonathan Club, one of the city’s most exclusive private clubs."[1]
In 1924 a contract was let for what Southwest Builder called a "magnificent new home" for the club — its present brick-faced structure at 545 S. Figueroa Street, one block west of the Los Angeles Central Library.[2][Full citation needed]
Since 1927, the Jonathan Club has owned a beach club in nearby Santa Monica. While the beach club is a power-lunch hot spot in L.A.'s Westside, the facility is used primarily by members' families and guests. In a time when other Los Angeles, private clubs have struggled to recruit younger members, the Jonathan Club's beach facility has been a strategic asset in luring new members.
[edit] Other
The Jonathan Club is home to the Ronald Reagan Distinguished American Award. In 1991, its first recipient was the former president himself. Both former President and former First Lady Nancy Reagan were present at the initial award ceremony, which was held in the club's main dining hall. Subsequent award recipients include entertainer Bob Hope, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Reverend Billy Graham and General Chuck Yeager. Legendary UCLA Bruins basketball coach John Wooden is also a recipient. The club would later rename its former women's parlor as the Reagan Room.
[edit] Notable members
- Nathan Cole Jr., an early member
- Robert S. MacAlister, Los Angeles City Council member, 1934–39
- Henry Edwards Huntington, a founding member, whose home became the Huntington Library in San Marino, California
- William May Garland, a founding member, and president of the Tenth Olympiad. Huntington's principal sales agent.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.nationaltrust.org/news/2006/20060216_pacific.html
- ^ Southwest Builder (July 11, 1924) p. 47.
