Cosmos Club

The Cosmos Club is a social club founded in Washington D.C. by John Wesley Powell in 1878. Clarence Edward Dutton, Henry Smith Pritchett, William Harkness, John Shaw Billings were original members. Among its stated goals is "The advancement of its members in science, literature, and art".

Its members have included many recipients of the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize and Presidential Medal of Freedom.

History

The Club originally met in the Corcoran Building on the corner of 15th and F Streets, Northwest, but moved to Lafayette Square in 1882. Eventually, the Club occupied the Tayloe and Dolley Madison Houses on the Eastern side of the Square, and razed two rowhouses between them for additional space. Prompted to relocate by the Federal government, the Club moved to the Townsend mansion at the intersection of Massachusetts and Florida Avenues in Northwest Washington in 1952.

Since 1887, the regular meeting place of the Philosophical Society of Washington has been the assembly hall of the Cosmos Club, now called the John Wesley Powell auditorium. The National Geographic Society was founded in the Cosmos Club in 1888.

For its first 110 years, the Cosmos Club did not permit women members, and forbade female guests to enter by the front door or to enter rooms reserved for members. In 1988, the Washington D.C. Human Rights Office ruled that there was probable cause to believe that the club's men-only policy violated the city's anti-discrimination law. The Office was ready to order public hearings on the case, which could have resulted in the loss of all city licenses and permits if the all-male policy had continued.

Members

• Cyrus Adler
• Akbar S. Ahmed
• Lila Oliver Asher
• John Vincent Atanasoff
• Aram Bakshian, Jr.
• Kevin Gordon Barrow
• Alexander Graham Bell
• Filmore Bender
• John Shaw Billings
• Harry Blackmun
• Herbert Block
• Thomas E. Bryant
• Vannevar Bush
• Robert Butler
• Stanwood Cobb
• Henry B. Collins
• Karl Compton
• Frank Cyr

• Clarence Edward Dutton
• John Hope Franklin
• Billie Frazier
• Hayner Haskell Gordon
• William R. Green
• William Harkness
• Helen Hayes
• Richard Holbrooke
• Herbert Hoover
• Abraham Horwitz
• M. Thomas Inge
• Howard Jenkins, Jr.
• Marvin Kalb
• James Katzer
• James Kilpatrick
• Henry Kissinger
• David Linowes
• Sol Linowitz
• Andrew Lipman
• Vladimir Lumelsky
• Gerald S. McGowan
• Robert McNamara

• Albert H. Marckwardt
• Sandra Day O'Connor
• Douglas Lane Patey
• Stanton J. Peelle
• George B. Post
• John Wesley Powell
• Larry Pressler
• Henry Smith Pritchett
• Mila Rechcigl
• Hood Roberts
• William Rodney
• Nelson Rockefeller
• Carl Sagan
• Roger Shuy
• Julian Steward
• William Howard Taft
• Joseph Weber
• Woodrow Wilson
• Robert Kapsch
• Steve Charnovitz
• Dr. Fred Singer

See also

• List of American gentlemen's clubs

External links

• Official web site of the Cosmos Club

References

Cosmos Club Official Site

• Presidents in the Cosmos
• Spaulding, Thomas M. (1949). The Cosmos Club on Lafayette Square. Washington, D.C.: The Cosmos Club.
• Crossette, George (1966). Founders of The Cosmos Club of Washington, 1878. Washington, D.C.: The Cosmos Club.
• Washburn, Wilcomb E. (1978). The Cosmos Club of Washington : a centennial history, 1878-1978. Washington, D.C.: The Cosmos Club.