The Ivy Club, often simply Ivy, is the oldest

eating club A dining club (UK) or eating club (US) is a social group, usually requiring membership (which may, or may not be available only to certain people), which meets for dinners and discussion on a regular basis. They may also often have guest speakers. ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

, and it is "still considered the most prestigious" by its members. It was founded in 1879 with

Arthur Hawley Scribner Arthur Hawley Scribner (March 15, 1859 – July 3, 1932) was president of Charles Scribner's Sons. Biography He was born on March 15, 1859. While at Princeton University he started the Ivy Club. He joined Charles Scribner's Sons Charles Sc ...

as its first head. Ivy is one of the "Big Four" eating clubs at Princeton (the others are Tiger Inn, University Cottage Club, and Cap and Gown Club), the four oldest and most prestigious on campus.

Club culture

The club is described by

F. Scott Fitzgerald Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...

in ''

This Side of Paradise ''This Side of Paradise'' is the debut novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1920. It examines the lives and morality of carefree American youth at the dawn of the Jazz Age. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is an attractive ...

'' (1920) as "detached and breathlessly aristocratic". A more recent account described Ivy as the "most patrician eating club at Princeton University" where members "eat at long tables covered with crisp white linens and set with 19th-century Sheffield silver candelabra, which are lighted even when daylight streams into the windows." Ivy Hall (Princeton)

Membership

The club was one of the last to admit women, resisting the change until spring 1991 after a lawsuit had been brought against the Ivy Club,

Tiger Inn Tiger Inn (or "T.I." as it is colloquially known) is one of the eleven active eating clubs at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. Tiger Inn was founded in 1890 and is one of the "Big Four" eating clubs at Princeton (the others are T ...

, and Cottage Club by the Princeton student Sally Frank and her lawyer Nadine Taub. The members of each class are selected through the '' bicker'' process, a series of ten screening interviews, which are followed by discussions amongst the members as to whom of the remaining to admit. Current undergraduate members host regular "Roundtable Dinners" featuring talks by faculty and alumni.

Clubhouse

The first clubhouse was Ivy Hall, a brownstone building on Mercer Street in Princeton that still stands. It had been constructed by Richard Stockton Field in 1847 as the home for the

Princeton Law School The Law School at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) was a department of Princeton University from 1847 until 1852. It began instruction in 1847 as a modest effort consisting of three professors: Joseph Coerten Hornblower, Rich ...

, a short-lived venture that lasted from 1847 to 1852. From the time of its founding until its incorporation in 1883, the club was generally known as the "Ivy Hall Eating Club." In 1883 the club purchased an empty lot on Prospect Avenue, which was a country dirt road at the time. Ivy erected a shingle-style clubhouse in 1884 on what is today the site of Colonial Club. The clubhouse was remodeled and extended in 1887-88. Following Ivy's move to new quarters across Prospect Avenue some ten years later, its second clubhouse was used by Colonial before being sold and moved to Plainsboro Township, New Jersey. Ivy's third and current clubhouse was designed in 1897 by the Philadelphia firm of Cope & Stewardson. In 2009, the club completed its most significant renovation to date. The expansion added a second wing to the facility, changing the club's original L-shaped layout to a U. Designed by

Demetri Porphyrios Demetri Porphyrios ( el, Δημήτρης Πορφυρίου; born 1949) is a Greek architect and author who practices architecture in London as principal of the firm Porphyrios Associates. In addition to his architectural practice and writing, ...

, the new wing includes a two-story Great Hall and a crypt to provide additional study space.

Notable alumni

The following is a list of some notable members of the Ivy Club: *

Hobey Baker Hobart Amory Hare "Hobey" Baker (January 15, 1892 – December 21, 1918) was an American amateur athlete of the early twentieth century. Considered the first American star in ice hockey by the Hockey Hall of Fame, he was also an accomplished Am ...

(1914) –

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

fighter pilot, member of the Hockey Hall of Fame and U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame * James A. Baker III (1952) – Chief of Staff for Ronald Reagan;

Secretary of Treasury The United States secretary of the treasury is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, and is the chief financial officer of the federal government of the United States. The secretary of the treasury serves as the principal a ...

and Secretary of State for George H. W. Bush * Lem Billings (1939) – confidante and "first friend" of President

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...

who was Kennedy's freshman-year roommate at Princeton *

Joshua B. Bolten Joshua Brewster Bolten (born August 16, 1954) is an American lawyer and politician. Bolten served as the White House Chief of Staff to President of the United States, U.S. President George W. Bush, replacing Andrew Card on April 14, 2006. Previous ...

(1976) – White House Chief of Staff and

Office of Management and Budget The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). OMB's most prominent function is to produce the president's budget, but it also examines agency programs, pol ...

director under

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Philip Bobbitt Philip Chase Bobbitt, (born July 22, 1948) is an American author, academic, and lawyer. He is best known for work on U.S. constitutional law and theory, and on the relationship between law, strategy and history in creating and sustaining the S ...

(1971) –

constitutional law Constitutional law is a body of law which defines the role, powers, and structure of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the parliament or legislature, and the judiciary; as well as the basic rights of citizens and, in fe ...

scholar and author of '' The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History'' *

Lauren Bush-Lauren Lauren Bush Lauren (born Lauren Pierce Bush; June 25, 1984) is the CEO and co-founder of FEED Projects. She is also known for her previous career as a fashion model and designer. She is the daughter of Neil Bush and Sharon Bush (née Smith), ...

(2006) –

fashion model A model is a person with a role either to promote, display or advertise commercial products (notably fashion clothing in fashion shows) or to serve as a visual aid for people who are creating works of art or to pose for photography. Thoug ...

and niece of

Joey Cheek William Joseph Cheek (born June 22, 1979) is an American former speed skater and inline speed skater. He specialized in the short and middle distances and won Olympic gold in 2006. Currently Cheek is a media entrepreneur. Accomplishments Cheek' ...

(2011) –

speed skater Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in travelling a certain distance on skates. Types of speed skating are long track speed skating, short track speed skating, and marathon speed skating. ...

who won gold and silver medals in the

2006 Winter Olympics The 2006 Winter Olympics, officially the XX Olympic Winter Games ( it, XX Giochi olimpici invernali) and also known as Torino 2006, were a winter multi-sport event held from 10 to 26 February 2006 in Turin, Italy. This marked the second ...

and co-founder and president of Team Darfur * Leonard S. Coleman, Jr. (1971) – president of the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...

Frank Deford Benjamin Franklin Deford III (December 16, 1938 – May 28, 2017) was an American sportswriter and novelist. From 1980 until his death in 2017, he was a regular sports commentator on NPR's ''Morning Edition'' radio program. Deford wrote fo ...

(1962) – author and sports commentator * Richard B. Fisher – philanthropist and chairman of

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...

* Moira Forbes—president and publisher, ForbesWoman * Bill Ford (1979) –

Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...

Thomas F. Gibson Thomas Fenner Gibson III (born January 23, 1955), better known as Tom Gibson, was an editor and cartoonist on the Opinion staff of ''USA Today'' at its founding, has worked with ''The Washington Post'', ''The Atlantic Monthly'', ''The New York ...

– first

political cartoonist An editorial cartoonist, also known as a political cartoonist, is an artist who draws editorial cartoons that contain some level of political or social commentary. Their cartoons are used to convey and question an aspect of daily news or curre ...

of ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...

'' and Director of Communication under Ronald Reagan *

John Marshall Harlan II John Marshall Harlan (May 20, 1899 – December 29, 1971) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1955 to 1971. Harlan is usually called John Marshall Harlan II to distinguish him ...

(1920) –

Associate Justice Associate justice or associate judge (or simply associate) is a judicial panel member who is not the chief justice in some jurisdictions. The title "Associate Justice" is used for members of the Supreme Court of the United States and some sta ...

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

Frederick Hitz Frederick Porter Hitz (born 14 October 1939) is an author and former Inspector General of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Hitz graduated from Princeton University and the Harvard School of Law. Hitz entered the CIA in 1967 as an operati ...

– Inspector General of the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

* Ellie Kemper (2002) - American actress, comedian, and writer *

Arthur Krock Arthur Bernard Krock (November 16, 1886 – April 12, 1974) was a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist. In a career spanning several decades covering the tenure of eleven United States presidents he became known as the "Dean of Washington ne ...

– four-time Pulitzer Prize–winning

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...

* A.B. Krongard (1953) – executive director of the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

Jim Leach James Albert Smith Leach (born October 15, 1942) is an American academic and former politician. He served as ninth Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2009 to 2013 Pogrebin, Robin"Rocco Landesman Confirmed as Chairman of the N ...

(1964) – U.S. Congressman from

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to th ...

and chairman of the

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

Blair Lee I Francis Preston Blair Lee (August 9, 1857December 25, 1944) was a Democratic member of the United States Senate, representing the State of Maryland from 1914 to 1917. He was also the great-grandson of American patriot Richard Henry Lee, and gran ...

(1880) –

United States Senator The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and powe ...

from

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

Blair Lee III Francis Preston Blair Lee III (May 19, 1916 – October 25, 1985) was an American Democratic politician. He served as the Secretary of State of Maryland from 1969 to 1971. He was Lieutenant Governor of Maryland from 1971 to 1979 and served ...

(1938) –

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Michael Lewis Michael Monroe Lewis (born October 15, 1960) Gale Biography In Context. is an American author and financial journalist. He has also been a contributing editor to ''Vanity Fair'' since 2009, writing mostly on business, finance, and economics. He ...

(1982) – author of '' Moneyball'' and ''

Liar's Poker ''Liar's Poker'' is a non-fiction, semi-autobiographical book by Michael Lewis (author), Michael Lewis describing the author's experiences as a Bond (finance), bond salesman on Wall Street during the late 1980s. First published in 1989, it is co ...

'' *

Breckinridge Long Samuel Miller Breckinridge Long (May 16, 1881 – September 26, 1958) was an American diplomat and politician. He served in the administrations of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He is infamous among Holocaust historians for makin ...

(1904) – U.S. diplomat in the administrations of

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...

and Franklin Delano Roosevelt *

Allan Marquand Allan Marquand (; December 10, 1853 – September 24, 1924) was an art historian at Princeton University and a curator of the Princeton University Art Museum. Early life Marquand was born on December 10, 1853 in New York City. He was a son of ...

(1874) –

logician Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...

whose Marquand diagram was a forerunner of the

Karnaugh map The Karnaugh map (KM or K-map) is a method of simplifying Boolean algebra expressions. Maurice Karnaugh introduced it in 1953 as a refinement of Edward W. Veitch's 1952 Veitch chart, which was a rediscovery of Allan Marquand's 1881 ''logi ...

Richard King Mellon Richard King Mellon (June 19, 1899 – June 3, 1970), commonly known as R.K., was an American financier, general, and philanthropist from Ligonier, Pennsylvania, and part of the Mellon family. Biography The son of Richard B. Mellon, nephew of ...

– financier, banker, and philanthropist who led the

urban renewal Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighte ...

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

John Aristotle Phillips John Aristotle Phillips (born August 23, 1955) is a U.S. entrepreneur specializing in political campaigns, who became famous for attempting to design a nuclear weapon while a student. "A-Bomb Kid" Phillips was born in August 1955 to Greek immigran ...

– entrepreneur specializing in political campaigns who became famous for attempting to design a nuclear weapon while a student. *

John Rawls John Bordley Rawls (; February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American moral, legal and political philosopher in the liberal tradition. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in ...

(1931) –

political philosopher Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, l ...

, author of ''

A Theory of Justice ''A Theory of Justice'' is a 1971 work of political philosophy and ethics by the philosopher John Rawls (1921-2002) in which the author attempts to provide a moral theory alternative to utilitarianism and that addresses the problem of distributi ...

'', originator of the concepts of

original position The original position (OP), often referred to as the veil of ignorance, is a thought experiment used for reasoning about the principles that should structure a society based on mutual dependence. The phrases ''original position'' and ''veil of i ...

and

veil of ignorance The original position (OP), often referred to as the veil of ignorance, is a thought experiment used for reasoning about the principles that should structure a society based on mutual dependence. The phrases ''original position'' and ''veil of i ...

Laurance Rockefeller Laurance Spelman Rockefeller (May 26, 1910 – July 11, 2004) was an American businessman, financier, philanthropist, and conservationist. Rockefeller was the third son and fourth child of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller. As ...

(1932) –

venture capitalist Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

, philanthropist and

environmentalist An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that se ...

Randall Rothenberg Randall Rothenberg is an American business executive, author, and former news and business reporter. He currently serves as Executive Chair for the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the trade association for interactive marketing in the U.S. Biogra ...

(1978) – president and CEO of the

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Saud bin Faisal bin Abdul Aziz The House of Saud ( ar, آل سُعُود, ʾĀl Suʿūd ) is the ruling royal family of Saudi Arabia. It is composed of the descendants of Muhammad bin Saud, founder of the Emirate of Diriyah, known as the First Saudi state (1727–1818), an ...

(1964) –

Saudi Arabian Saudis ( ar, سعوديون, Suʿūdiyyūn) are people identified with the country of Saudi Arabia. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. The Saudis are composed mainly of Arabs and primarily speak a regional dialect ...

Foreign Minister *

(1881) – first head of the eating club and president of publisher

Charles Scribner's Sons Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner's or Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing American authors including Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Marjorie Kinnan R ...

Booth Tarkington Newton Booth Tarkington (July 29, 1869 – May 19, 1946) was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his novels '' The Magnificent Ambersons'' (1918) and '' Alice Adams'' (1921). He is one of only four novelists to win the Pulitz ...

(1893) – Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist * Jim Thompson (1928) – OSS officer and

Thai silk Thai silk ( th, ผ้าไหมไทย, , ) is produced from the cocoons of Thai silkworms. Thailand's silkworm farmers cultivate both types of the domesticated silkworms that produce commercial silk: ''Samia ricini'', commonly known as the ...

entrepreneur who famously and mysteriously disappeared in

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

in 1967 *

Terdema Ussery Terdema Lamar Ussery II (born December 4, 1958) is a senior partner and general council for Verreaux Consulting Group. He is the former president and CEO of the National Basketball Association’s Dallas Mavericks. During that time, he also serv ...

– president and CEO of the Dallas Mavericks professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

team * Rodman Wanamaker – arts patron, aviation pioneer, and founder of the Professional Golfers' Association of America (PGA) *

–

U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

, 1913–1921 (Associate Graduate Member) *

John Gilbert Winant John Gilbert Winant (February 23, 1889 – November 3, 1947) was an American diplomat and politician with the Republican party after a brief career as a teacher in Concord, New Hampshire. John Winant held positions in New Hampshire, national, an ...

–

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...

and

U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom The United States ambassador to the United Kingdom (known formally as the ambassador of the United States to the Court of St James's) is the official representative of the president of the United States and the American government to the monarc ...

* Frank G. Wisner (1961) – public servant and diplomat who served as U.S. Ambassador to

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are t ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

the Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

, and

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. *

Jacob Candelaria Jacob Rodney Candelaria (born 1987) is an American politician and attorney who served as a member of the New Mexico Senate for the 26th district from 2013 to 2022. First elected in 2012 as a Democrat, he later left the party in 2021 to become an ...

-New Mexico state senator, first openly gay man elected to the

New Mexico Legislature The New Mexico Legislature ( es, Legislatura de Nuevo México) is the legislative branch of the state government of New Mexico. It is a bicameral body made up of the New Mexico House of Representatives and the New Mexico Senate. History The N ...

and civil rights attorney.

References

External links

Official Ivy Club Website

of the clubs, at Princeton's official site.

from James Bradberry Architects website

from the New York Times {{Princeton

Ivy Club The Ivy Club, often simply Ivy, is the oldest eating club at Princeton University, and it is "still considered the most prestigious" by its members. It was founded in 1879 with Arthur Hawley Scribner as its first head. Ivy is one of the "Big Four ...

Jacobean architecture in the United States Jacobethan architecture Historic district contributing properties in Mercer County, New Jersey Secret societies in the United States