Tavern Club (Boston, Massachusetts)

The Tavern Club is a private social club in downtown Boston, Massachusetts, established in 1884 by Royal Whitman, T. Adamowski, B.C. Porter, George Munzig, and Frederick Prince. Charter members included Arthur Rotch and others. Membership is by invitation; in recent years membership includes women. Notable members of the Club have included William Dean Howells, Henry Cabot Lodge, Henry James, and Charles Eliot Norton.

In February, 1885, the Club adopted the Totem of Bear, which continues today as mascot for the group.

Frequent dinners, lectures, and musical and theatrical performances take place in the Club for the members and their guests. In March 1885, Mark Twain attended a dinner in his honor, and another in 1901. Dinners have been given in honor of many others, including Elihu Vedder (1887), Rudyard Kipling (1895), Oliver Wendell Holmes (1902), John Singer Sargent (1903), Booker T. Washington (1905), Winston Churchill (1907), Norman Angell (1913), George Macaulay Trevelyan (1924), Owen Wister (1929), Ignace Paderewski (1930).

A pervasive sense of humor and occasion characterizes many Club activities. The 1907 Annual Meeting treated the Members to a Puppy Raffle. The Club played a baseball game against the rival St. Botolph Club on June 25, 1913.

References

• Howe. Partial Semi-Centennial History of the Tavern Club. 1934.
• Tavern Club. The Rules. 1886.