The Bohemian Club is a

private club A club is an voluntary association, association of people united by a common interest or goal. A service club, for example, exists for voluntary or charitable activities. There are clubs devoted to hobbies and sports, social activities clubs, po ...

with two locations: a city clubhouse in the

Nob Hill Nob Hill is a neighborhood of San Francisco, California, United States that is known for its numerous luxury hotels and historic mansions. Nob Hill has historically served as a center of San Francisco's upper class. Nob Hill is among the highes ...

district of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, and the Bohemian Grove, a retreat north of the city in Sonoma County. Founded in 1872 from a regular meeting of journalists, artists, and musicians, it soon began to accept businessmen and entrepreneurs as permanent members, as well as offering temporary membership to university presidents (notably

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

and

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

) and military commanders who were serving in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

. Today, the club has a membership of many local and global leaders, ranging from artists and musicians to businessmen. Membership is restricted to men only.

Clubhouse

The City Club is located in a six-story masonry building at the corner of Post Street and Taylor Street, two blocks west of Union Square, and on the same block as both the

Olympic Club The Olympic Club is an sports club, athletic club and private social club in San Francisco, San Francisco, California. First named the "San Francisco Olympic Club", it is the oldest sports club, athletic club in the United States. Established o ...

and the

Marines Memorial Club The Marines' Memorial Club in San Francisco, California at 609 Sutter Street (at Mason), is a 501(c)(19), 501(c)19 nonprofit veterans charity and private social club for United States Marines and other veterans of the United States Armed Forces. ...

. The clubhouse contains dining rooms, meeting rooms, a bar, a library, an art gallery, a theater, and guest rooms.

Bohemian Grove

Every year, the club hosts a two-week-long (three weekends) camp at Bohemian Grove, which is notable for its illustrious guest list and its eclectic ''

Cremation of Care The ''Cremation of Care'' is an annual ritual production written, produced, and performed by and for members of the Bohemian Club. It is staged at the Bohemian Grove near Monte Rio, California, in front of a 40-foot tall image of an owl, at a smal ...

'' ceremony which mockingly burns an effigy of "Care" (the normal woes of life) with grand pageantry, pyrotechnics, and brilliant costumes, all done at the edge of a lake and at the base of a forty-foot "stone" owl statue (actually made of concrete). In addition to that ceremony, devised by co-founder

James F. Bowman James F. Bowman (January 21, 1826 – April 29, 1882) was a journalist and poet in Northern California, and a co-founder of the Bohemian Club. Bowman served on several newspapers in Placerville, Sacramento and San Francisco during a 24-year care ...

in 1881, there are also two outdoor performances (dramatic and comedic plays), often with elaborate set design and orchestral accompaniment. The more elaborate of the two is the Grove Play, or ''High Jinks''; the more ribald is called ''Low Jinks''. More often than not, the productions are original creations of the Associate members, but active participation of hundreds of members of all backgrounds is traditional.

Nathanial Brittan Party House

Nathaniel J. Brittan co-founded the Bohemian Club of San Francisco in 1872 and by 1892 was the president of the club. He built the Nathanial Brittan Party House in San Carlos, California, in order to entertain his friends from the club and to use as a hunting lodge.

History

Bohemianism

In New York City and other American metropolises in the late 1850s, groups of young, cultured journalists flourished as self-described "bohemians", until the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

broke them up and sent them out as war correspondents.The Mark Twain Project
Explanatory Notes regarding the letter from Samuel Langhorne Clemens to Charles Warren Stoddard, 23 Apr 1867.
Retrieved on July 26, 2009. During the war, reporters began to assume the title "bohemian", and newspapermen in general took up the moniker. "Bohemian" became synonymous with "newspaper writer". California journalist

Bret Harte Bret Harte (; born Francis Brett Hart; August 25, 1836 – May 5, 1902) was an American short story writer and poet best remembered for short fiction featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures of the California Gold Rush. In a caree ...

first wrote as "The Bohemian" in '' The Golden Era'' in 1861, with this persona taking part in many satirical doings. Harte described San Francisco as a sort of Bohemia of the West.Ogden, Dunbar H.; Douglas McDermott; Robert Károly Sarló
''Theatre West: Image and Impact''
Rodopi, 1990, pp. 17–42.

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...

called himself and poet Charles Warren Stoddard bohemians in 1867.

Founding

The Bohemian Club was originally formed in April 1872 by and for

journalists A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

who wished to promote a fraternal connection among men who enjoyed

the arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...

. Michael Henry de Young, proprietor of the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...

'', provided this description of its formation in a 1915 interview: Journalists were to be regular members; artists and musicians were to be honorary members.''The Elite directory for San Francisco and Oakland''
Argonaut Publishing Co., 1879, pp. 175–184. The group quickly relaxed its rules for membership to permit some people to join who had little artistic talent, but enjoyed the arts and had greater financial resources. Eventually, the original "bohemian" members were in the minority and the wealthy and powerful controlled the club.Parry, 2005
pp. 218–219.
/ref> Club members who were established and successful, respectable family men, defined for themselves their own form of bohemianism, which included men who were bon vivants, sometime outdoorsmen, and appreciators of the arts. Club member and poet George Sterling responded to this redefinition: Despite his purist views, Sterling associated very closely with the Bohemian Club and caroused with artist and industrialist alike at the Bohemian Grove.

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular playwrights in London in the early 1890s. He is ...

, upon visiting the club in 1882, is reported to have said, "I never saw so many well-dressed, well-fed, business-looking Bohemians in my life."

Membership

A number of past membership lists are in public domain, but modern club membership lists are private. Some prominent figures have been given honorary membership, such as

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

and

William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboya ...

. Members have included some

U.S. presidents The president of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States, indirectly elected to a four-year term Term may refer to: * Terminology, or term, a noun or compound word used in a specific context, in pa ...

(usually before they are elected to office), many

cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...

officials, and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

s of large corporations, including major financial institutions. Major

military contractor The arms industry, also known as the arms trade, is a global industry which manufactures and sells weapons and military technology. It consists of a commercial industry involved in the research and development, engineering, production, and servi ...

s, oil companies, banks (including the

Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States of America. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a ...

), utilities, and national media have high-ranking officials as club members or guests. Many members are, or have been, on the board of directors of several of these corporations; however, artists and lovers of art are among the most active members. The club's bylaws require ten percent of the membership be accomplished artists of all types (composers, musicians, singers, actors, lighting artists, painters, authors, etc.). During the first half of the 20th century, membership in the club was especially valued by painters and sculptors, who exhibited their work on the premises, in both permanent displays and special exhibitions, and did not pay any commissions on sales to members. An online facsimile of the entire text of Vol. 1 is posted on the Traditional Fine Arts Organization website (http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/10aa/10aa557.htm ). Many of the club's artists were nationally recognized figures, such as William Keith,

Arthur Frank Mathews Arthur F. Mathews (October 1, 1860 – February 19, 1945) was an American Tonalist painter who was one of the founders of the American Arts and Crafts Movement. Trained as an architect and artist, he and his wife Lucia Kleinhans Mathews had a s ...

, Xavier Martinez,

Jules Eugene Pages Jules Eugene Pages (1867-1946), sometimes Jules Eugène Pagès, was an American painter. He is known for landscape, marine and genre paintings in the impressionist manner. Biography Born in San Francisco, California on May 16, 1867, to parent ...

Edwin Deakin Edwin Deakin (May 21, 1838 – May 11, 1923) was a British-American artist best known for his romantic landscapes as well as his architectural studies, especially the Spanish colonial missions of California. His still lifes are considered to be ...

William Ritschel William Frederic Ritschel, also known as Wilhelm Frederick Ritschel (1864–1949), was a California impressionist painter who was born in Nuremberg, Germany on July 11, 1864. Germany and New York After completing his education at a regional Gym ...

Jo Mora Joseph Jacinto Mora (October 22, 1876 – October 10, 1947) was a Uruguayan-born American cowboy, photographer, artist, cartoonist, illustrator, painter, muralist, sculptor, and historian who lived with the Hopi and wrote about his experiences in ...

, Maynard Dixon and Arthur Putnam. The club motto is "Weaving Spiders Come Not Here", a line taken from Act 2, Scene 2, of Shakespeare's ''

A Midsummer Night's Dream ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a comedy written by William Shakespeare 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict amon ...

''. The club motto implies that outside concerns and business deals are to be left outside. When gathered in groups, Bohemians usually adhere to the injunction, though discussion of business often occurs between pairs of members.Peter Martin Phillips
A Relative Advantage: Sociology of the San Francisco Bohemian Club
, 1994.

Bret Harte Memorial

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

is installed on the exterior of the building. It serves as a memorial to author and poet

. The relief, which is by by , was first dedicated on August 15, 1919, as a tribute by Mora, who was a member, to fellow Bohemian Club member Harte. The relief shows fifteen characters from books by Harte. It is inscribed: Proper left, upper corner: : Proper left, lower edge: : Top center wreath: : followed by the founder's mark for L. De Rome. When the original building was torn down, the relief was removed. In 1934, it was reinstalled on the building that stands today.

References

;Notes

Bibliography

* Domhoff, G. William
''Bohemian Grove and Other Retreats: A Study in Ruling-Class Cohesiveness''
Harper & Row, 1975. * Dulfer & Hoag

San Francisco, Dulfer & Hoag, 1925. * Garnett, Porter
''The Bohemian Jinks: A Treatise''
1908 * * Parry, Albert. (2005.) ''Garretts & Pretenders: A History of Bohemianism in America'', Cosimo, Inc. * Watson, E. H. "The Bohemian Club Legacy." ''The English review'' 62.3 (1936): 289–306.

Primary sources

* Bohemian Club
''Constitution, By-laws, and Rules, Officers, Committees, and Members''
1904 * Bohemian Club
''Semi-centennial high jinks in the Grove''
July 28, 1922. Haig Patigian, Sire. * Bohemian Club
''History, officers and committees, incorporation, constitution, by-laws and rules, former officers, members, in memoriam''
1960 * Bohemian Club
''History, officers and committees, incorporation, constitution, by-laws and rules, former officers, members, in memoriam''
1962 ;Archival Sources
Finding Aid to the Bohemian Club Collection 1872-2009 (bulk 1890-1970) at the San Francisco Public Library, Book Arts and Special Collections CenterFinding Aid to Bohemian Grove Photographs, 1890 to 1950, at San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco History Center

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bohemian Club 1872 establishments in California Bohemianism Clubs and societies in California Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area Gentlemen's clubs in the United States Men's organizations in the United States Nob Hill, San Francisco Organizations based in San Francisco Organizations based in Sonoma County, California Organizations established in 1872