The Explorers Club

 
In May 1904, a group of men active in exploration met at the request of Henry Collins Walsh, to form an organization to unite explorers in the bonds of good fellowship and to promote the work of exploration by every means in its power. And I mean men ... there were no women explorers as part of the original group or early history.







  

The dining room set for a Members' Dinner

Among these men were Adolphus Greely, Donaldson Smith, Henry Collins Walsh, Carl Lumholtz, Marshall Saville, Frederick Dellenbaugh, W. Furness, and David Brainard. On May 28, 1904, a dinner at the Aldine Association, located at 111 Fifth Avenue in New York City, was attended by fifty men well known in exploration. At this dinner, The Explorers Club was organized, and incorporated, and on October 25, 1905, the first regular meeting was held during the afternoon.

Astronauts are explorers of the final frontier

The Club began to invite both explorers returning from the field and visiting scientists to tell of their experiences. This informal practice soon developed into the lecture illustrated talks of the 1930s and 1940s. 

In 1912, The Explorers Club took upon its rolls all the members of the Arctic Club of America, to which it had sublet quarters and to which it was closely allied through overlapping memberships.

The Arctic Club also had been organized by Henry Collins Walsh when he was one of a party returning to New York after the wreck of the Miranda off the coast of Greenland. This cruise—organized as Dr. Frederick A. Cook’s Arctic Expedition of 1894—ended abruptly when “a single solitary iceberg among the almost countless numbers that would be passed on the way would willfully crash into the Miranda….” (Walsh 1896. The Last Cruise of the Miranda. New York, Transatlantic Publishing Co.). Walsh, Cook, and the other explorers promised each other to meet annually to celebrate their common bond.



  

Members' Library

The Explorers Club was headquartered in several buildings in New York during its early history and each time when the membership outgrew their quarters, they moved to a larger space. In 1965 the Club purchased its current headquarters at 46 East 70th Street—a stunning Jacobean townhouse built in 1910 for Stephen Clark. The building was renamed in honor of Lowell Thomas, famed journalist and a member of the Club, whose generosity helped make the purchase possible. This beautiful townhouse is a fitting home for the Club.









It was here, in 1981, under the tenure of President Charles F. Brush, that the Club finally welcomed a new class of members, greatly expanding its rolls. At last, women were admitted to membership. The Club’s first female members included Sylvia Earle, Dian Fossey, Rita Mathews, Anna Roosevelt, and Kathryn Sullivan.

I held and attended several events at The Explorers Club when I worked for Waterkeeper Alliance in New York. And the club was the location of this year's African Parks Foundation gala. I just love everything about the club and what it stands for and I support its purpose and mission. So much so that I am proud to announce that I am being sponsored for membership in this historic club. I feel so honored.