The Lotos Club was founded in 1870 as a gentlemen's club in New York City; it has since also admitted women as members. Its founders were primarily a young group of writers and critics.

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 ...

, an early member, called it the "Ace of Clubs"."The Lotos Club,"
official website. Accessed May 11, 2011. The Club took its name from the poem "The Lotos-Eaters" by

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...

, which was then very popular. Lotos was thought to convey an idea of rest and harmony. Two lines from the poem were selected for the Club motto: The Lotos Club has always had a literary and artistic bent, with the result that it has accumulated a noted collection of American paintings. Its "State Dinners" (1893 menu at right below) are legendary fetes for scholars, artists and sculptors, collectors and connoisseurs, writers and journalists, and politicians and diplomats. Elaborate souvenir menus are produced for these dinners.

History

The Lotos Club's first home was at Two Irving Place, north of 14th Street near the Academy of Music and on the site of the

Consolidated Edison Building The Consolidated Edison Building (also known as the Consolidated Gas Building and 4 Irving Place) is a neoclassical skyscraper in Gramercy Park, Manhattan, New York City, United States. The 26-story building was designed by the architectural ...

. Journalist DeWitt Van Buren was the Lotos Club's first president; he was succeeded by

A. Oakey Hall Abraham Oakey Hall (July 26, 1826 – October 7, 1898) was an American politician, lawyer, and writer. He served as Mayor of New York from 1869 to 1872 as a Democrat. Hall, known as "Elegant Oakey", was a model of serenity and respectability. R ...

. Other early Club officers included Vice President F.A. Schwab, Secretary George Hows, and Treasurer Albert Weber. ''

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'' editor Whitelaw Reid was elected Club president in 1877, at which time the Lotos Club moved to 149 Fifth Avenue at 21st Street. In 1893, the Club moved to 556-558 Fifth Avenue at 46th Street, purchasing their first clubhouse. It was at the Lotos Club in 1906 that George Harvey, editor of '' Harper's Weekly'', sent up his first trial balloon by proposing Woodrow Wilson for the office of President of the United States. In 1909, with financial backing from Andrew Carnegie, the clubhouse was moved to 110 West 57th Street, in a building designed by architect

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. Frank R. Lawrence was the Club's longest serving president, from March 1889 until his death on October 26, 1918.Price, Charles W. (Lotos Club Vice President). Letter to the editor, ''New York Times'' (June 29, 1927). Lawrence was succeeded as president by Chester S. Lord, who served for five years. In 1923, Columbia University president Nicholas Murray Butler was elected president of the Club. The Club has a long history of showing the work of its artist members and has also held exhibitions of work from the collections of its members including one in 1910 that featured works by Degas, Monet, Renoir, Cassatt, and Hassam.''Where Fancy Took Flight: Rusty Traces of Sumptuous Architecture on West 57th Street''
The New York Times (2014, July 17): retrieved July 20, 2014. In October 1941 the club held a mortgage-burning ceremony to mark payment of the $389,000 owed on the West 57th Street building. But in 1945 members began considering a move to a "simpler clubhouse." The club has been housed since 1947 in a 1900 clubhouse designed by Richard Howland Hunt at 5 East 66th Street. (The building had been commissioned by Margaret Shepard as a gift for her daughter, Mrs. William Jay Schieffelin.) In 1977, the Club amended its constitution to admit women.

Constitution

Lotos Club Medal of Merit

The Lotos Club issues a Medal of Merit; previous recipients include general David Petraeus, scientist James D. Watson, flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal, and puppeteer Bil Baird. The Club also awards a Foundation Prize and an Award of Distinction.

Notable members

* Brooke Astor *

Mikhail Baryshnikov Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Барышников, p=mʲɪxɐˈil bɐ'rɨʂnʲɪkəf; lv, Mihails Barišņikovs; born January 28, 1948) is a Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Latvian-born R ...

* Kathleen Battle * Andrew Carnegie *

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* Mary Higgins Clark * Samuel Clemens *

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* Hume Cronyn * Mario Cuomo * David Dinkins * Dwight D. Eisenhower * Renee Fleming *

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* Alan Gilbert *

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* William Randolph Hearst * David M. Heyman * Marilyn Horne * Leslie Howard *

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* Sir Henry Irving *

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* Angela Lansbury *

Leonard Liebling Leonard Liebling (February 7, 1874 – October 28, 1945) was an American music critic, writer, librettist, editor, piano, pianist, and composer. He is best remembered as the long time editor-in-chief of the ''Musical Courier'' from 1911 to 1945. ...

* Wynton Marsalis * Margaret Mead * Burgess Meredith *

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* Christopher Plummer *

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* Bobby Short * Beverly Sills *

Stephen Sondheim Stephen Joshua Sondheim (; March 22, 1930November 26, 2021) was an American composer and lyricist. One of the most important figures in twentieth-century musical theater, Sondheim is credited for having "reinvented the American musical" with sho ...

* Isaac Stern * Elaine Stritch *

Susan Stroman Susan P. Stroman (born October 17, 1954) is an American theatre director, choreographer, film director and performer. Her notable theater productions include '' The Producers'', '' Crazy for You'', ''Contact'', and '' The Scottsboro Boys''. She i ...

Moses J. Stroock Moses Jesse Stroock (August 18, 1866 – October 27, 1931) was a Jewish-American lawyer from New York. Life Stroock was born on August 18, 1866, in New York City, New York, the son of Samuel Stroock and Mariana Marcuse. His father was a German im ...

* Arthur Hays Sulzberger * Jessica Tandy *

J. Walter Thompson J. Walter Thompson (JWT) was an advertisement holding company incorporated in 1896 by American advertising pioneer James Walter Thompson. The company was acquired in 1987 by multinational holding company WPP plc, and in November 2018, WPP merge ...

* Orson Welles * P. G. Wodehouse * Tom Wolfe * James Wolfensohn *

Frank Winfield Woolworth Frank Winfield Woolworth (April 13, 1852 – April 8, 1919) was an American entrepreneur, the founder of F. W. Woolworth Company, and the operator of variety stores known as "Five-and-Dimes" (5- and 10-cent stores or dime stores) which featured ...

* Andrew Wyeth * Yo-Yo Ma * James D. Watson

Notes

External links