Service Clubs in American Society: Rotary, Kiwanis, and LionsTo media representatives, they're soup clubs. To young professionals new to a community or interested in making the right contacts, they may represent a chance to get ahead. To local charities, they're a source of funds. But groups such as the Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions clubs, according to Jeffrey Charles, have over time been a mirror reflecting changes within the American middle class. In this first full-length study of men's service clubs, Charles argues that they have played a crucial role in helping business and professional men adapt to corporate development and community change. Placing the clubs in the context of twentieth-century middle-class culture, Charles maintains that they represented the response of locally oriented, traditional middle-class men to societal changes. The groups emerged at a time when service was becoming both a middle-class and a business ideal. As voluntary associations, they represented a shift in organizing rationale, from fraternalism to service. The clubs and their ideology of service were welcome as a unifying force at a time when small cities and towns were beset by economic and population pressures. The clubs originally served to strengthen the community via local business activism, Charles states, but they also were agents for change that altered community traditions and helped place local practices in line with national trends. A chief target in the 1920s of cultural critics led by Sinclair Lewis and H. L. Mencken, the clubs later benefited from the conservative response to the New Deal and the cold war. Though they suffered during the turbulent 1960s, these clubs continued building international organizations that now claim memberships in themillions. |
Contents
Serving Business | 34 |
Serving the Community | 57 |
The Clubs and the Critics | 86 |
Adjusting to Hard Times | 104 |
Serving the World | 124 |
Serving the Suburbs | 141 |
Common terms and phrases
American Culture Annual Convention appeared argued attempted Babbitt boosterism Boy Scouts boy's bureaucratic chamber of commerce charity civic Club File club members club service club's concerns cooperation corporate critics Deal Depression discussion early economic Elks ethic expansion fellowship fraternal orders Freemasonry growth H. L. Mencken Harris Helen Merrell Lynd Herbert Hoover ideal ideology Illinois individual influence interests joined Kiwanian Kiwanis Activities Kiwanis Club Kiwanis International Kiwanis Magazine Klan labor leaders Lewis Lionism Lions clubs lodge Lynd membership Mencken middle middle-class Moose nineteenth-century Odd-Fellows officials organizational organizations Oxford University Press percent political president Princeton Proceedings professionals progressivism represented response ritual role Rotarian Rotary Club Rotary International Rotary's service clubs Sinclair Lewis Small Business small businessmen small cities small-town social society suburban thirties tion tional towns twenties twentieth century University of Chicago urban voluntary associations women women's clubs workers York youth