The Bohemian Club is a private club 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 for " 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 fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

and the

Bohemian Grove Bohemian Grove is a restricted 2,700-acre (1,100 ha) campground at 20601 Bohemian Avenue, in Monte Rio, California, United States, belonging to a private San Francisco–based gentlemen's club known as the Bohemian Club. In mid-July each year, ...

, a retreat north of the city in

Sonoma County Sonoma County () is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, its population was 488,863. Its county seat and largest city is Santa Rosa. It is to the north of Marin County and the south of Mendocino ...

. 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 and Stanford) 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 and the Marines Memorial Club. 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

, which is notable for its illustrious guest list and its eclectic '' Cremation of Care'' 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 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 Brittan 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 ...

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 ''The Golden Era'' was a 19th-century San Francisco newspaper. The publication featured the writing of f.e.g. Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard (writing at first as "Pip Pepperpod"), Fitz Hugh Ludlow, Adah Isaacs Menken, Ada Clar ...

'' 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 called himself and poet

Charles Warren Stoddard Charles Warren Stoddard (August 7, 1843 April 23, 1909) was an American author and editor best known for his travel books about Polynesian life. Biography Charles Warren Stoddard was born in Rochester, New York on August 7, 1843. He was desce ...

bohemians in 1867.

Founding

The Bohemian Club was originally formed in April 1872 by and for journalists 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 Michael Henry de Young (September 30, 1849 – February 15, 1925) was an American journalist and businessman. Early life De Young was born in St. Louis, Missouri. The family was Jewish. Michael in later years claimed that his father was a Balt ...

, 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 Michael H. de Young. The ...

'', 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 George Sterling (December 1, 1869 – November 17, 1926) was an American writer based in the San Francisco, California Bay Area and Carmel-by-the-Sea. He was considered a prominent poet and playwright and proponent of Bohemianism during the fi ...

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

. Oscar Wilde, 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 (usually before they are elected to office), many cabinet officials, and CEOs 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 ...

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 Xavier or Xabier may refer to: Place * Xavier, Spain People * Xavier (surname) * Xavier (given name) * Francis Xavier (1506–1552), Catholic saint ** St. Francis Xavier (disambiguation) * St. Xavier (disambiguation) * Xavier (footballer, born ...

, Jules Eugene Pages, Edwin Deakin, William Ritschel, Jo Mora,

Maynard Dixon Maynard Dixon (January 24, 1875 – November 11, 1946) was an American artist. He was known for his paintings, and his body of work focused on the American West. Dixon is considered one of the finest artists having dedicated most of their art o ...

and

Arthur Putnam Arthur Putnam (September 6, 1873 – May 27, 1930) was an American sculptor and animalier who was recognized for his bronze sculptures of wild animals. Some of his artworks are public monuments. He was a well-known figure, both statewide and n ...

. 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''. 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

A bronze

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 th ...

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

. The relief, which is approximately 3 ft. 3 7/8 in. x 7 ft. 11 5/8 in. x 2 1/2 in. (101 cm x 243 cm x 6 cm), 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: :J J MORA :AUGUST 15, 1919 Proper left, lower edge:
:L. DE ROME :BRONZE FOUNDRY Top center wreath: :IN :MEMORIAM :BRET :HARTE :1836–1902 :AD 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 * 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 Haig Patigian ( hy, Հայկ Բադիկեան; January 22, 1876 – September 19, 1950), was an Armenian-American sculptor. Biography Patigian was born in the city of Van, Turkey, Van in the Ottoman Empire. His parents were teachers at the Am ...

, 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 * 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. ;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
{{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 Secret societies in the United States