Abstract:
Over the course of the twentieth century, millions of businessmen and professionals have gathered in the name of service, to enjoy an informal fellowship and to perform charitable and community betterment projects. Despite their integral role in the social life of American communities, however, services clubs have been neglected by historians. This dissertation describes the development of the three largest service associations--Rotary International, Kiwanis International, and the International Association of Lions Clubs--and argues they deserve study as a complex middle class response to twentieth century social transformations.
The clubs first appeared in big cities in the early twentieth century, attracting locally-oriented businessmen and independent professionals. By supplying a business network and sociability reminiscent of small town neighborliness, the clubs offered an antidote to anomic urban conditions. In the 1920's, however, the clubs spread rapidly to towns and small cities. Members in small communities hoped clubs could help revitalize occupational and residential traditions weakened by corporate and urban expansion. Their boosterism brought attacks from critics who saw the clubs as characteristic of America's crass business culture. But members defended their associations' friendliness and community spirit as a way of combatting the impersonality and divisiveness of the modern age.
In the thirties, the clubs' small town, small business vision continued to appeal to men not only in America but also abroad, as Rotary and later the Lions conducted a successful international expansion program. A debilitating fear of social discord hampered club response to the depression and the stormy international affairs of the thirties. Nevertheless, the service organizations weathered those difficulties, and continued their expansion after World War II.
However, as large-scale trends continued to weaken the place of small business and small communities in America, members no longer spoke for traditions separate from modern institutional life. New clubs operated in primariily residential suburbs, undermining the boosterism that fueled club activities in the twenties. Club leaders began referring to their associations as charitable agencies, part of a voluntary "third sector" of bureaucratic organizations. Today, as their distinctive social function gradually disappears, American service clubs face an uncertain future.