WEBVTT - Where Did Country Clubs Come From? 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.520 I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:04.920 When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:06.960 And when I find my ball in a brid Egg 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:10.600 Friday Egg, the dreaded Frida Egg Friday, Frida Egg Egg, 0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:12.959 Frida Egg, Bride Egg Lie, I'm about ready to run 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:38.200 off of the hump. Hello, and welcome to the Frida 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:41.680 Egg Podcast. My name is Garrett Morrison, and today we're 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:45.560 talking about how and why country club life started in America. 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:49.239 So the US Open is at the country Club and 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:52.280 Brookline this week, and a Brookline is often said to 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:55.800 be the nation's first country club. Now, I'm not sure 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:59.000 how accurate that claim is, but it was definitely one 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:02.520 of the first. It's been active since the early eighteen eighties, 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:06.360 and it's offered golf since the early eighteen nineties. Before 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:10.280 that period, there just weren't many places like it in America. 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:12.960 By the end of the eighteen hundreds, though it was 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:16.399 a different story. The eighteen nineties in particular sought an 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:20.560 explosion of golf focused clubs in the US. And I've 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:24.280 often wondered why this happened then, Why was it that 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.880 about one hundred and thirty years ago, Americans suddenly wanted 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:31.839 to go out and form country clubs and play golf. Well, 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:34.800 the best answers to that question that I've found are 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:37.639 in a book called Golf and the American country Club, 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:40.560 which was written about fifteen years ago by Richard J. 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:41.360 Moss. 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.720 But believe it or not, everybody calls me Pete, Yeah, 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:49.400 I tied just I taught college history for almost forty years, 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:51.480 mostly in Maine at Kolby College. 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:54.880 Pete has also written other books, including The Kingdom of 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.480 Golf in America and Eden in the Pines, a History 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:02.240 of Pinehurst Village, both horrific as well. But in Golf 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:05.440 and the American country Club, Pete gives his most concise 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:08.160 argument as to why places like the Country Club and 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:11.920 Brookline came about, and basically, he says it had a 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:15.200 lot to do with big changes that were happening throughout 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:18.200 the country in the late eighteen hundreds, the late Victorian period, 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:20.840 as we'll call it. The cities were getting bigger and 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:25.680 more hectic, corporations were becoming more powerful, immigration was increasing, 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:30.240 and essentially, many middle to upper class people in America 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:34.359 wanted to get away. These people included what would become 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:37.840 known as the Apple Tree Gang. That's where Pete and 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:41.040 I pick up in our conversation, and just as an FYI, 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:44.080 we recorded this about a year ago for a bigger 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:47.840 project that never quite came together, and so there are 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:51.560 some references to COVID times that thankfully were more relevant 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:54.400 than they are now. All right, let's get to it. 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:04.520 So I know that you did most of your research 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:07.080 years ago on this, but I was wondering if we 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.839 could start by talking about the Apple Tree Gang, who 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:12.679 they were and what they did. 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:16.560 You know, all I think of when I think about 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:19.680 the Apple Tree Gang is that there were Scots to 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:24.040 the for the most part, and they very often had 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:28.800 some connections and went back to Scotland, and they wanted 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:32.200 to play golf in America. And they started out really crudely. 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:34.519 I think that's the main thing. I mean, they started 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:37.600 out playing in an apple orchard. You know, when I 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:39.960 think about clubs, I always think about some sort of 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:45.200 development that everybody thinks that these clubs are, you know, 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:47.880 born in one day and the next thing, you know, 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:51.839 one day you don't have Tubble Beach and the next 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:56.120 day you do. The clubs in the eighties, the first 0:03:56.160 --> 0:04:00.360 clubs in the eighties and the nineties were really really 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:03.680 didn't no word for how simple they really were. I mean, 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:08.240 the reality is they often rented the land. That was 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:13.520 how That's the indication of how tentative they approached this. 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.320 And you know, as personalities, they were upper middle class 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:23.920 suburban New Yorkers, and they got together, they were friends, 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:28.280 and they played on in a very crude fashion. Then 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:31.120 the next thing, you know, they bought some land and 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:35.560 the next thing you know, it was Saint Andrews of Yonkers, 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:41.520 you know, uh. And and the history of the clubs 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:44.400 from that period are very often like that. Even if 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:46.880 the people were very wealthy and could afford to just 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:51.000 you know, gohole hog and buy land and get a 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:55.600 designer and do that. But that wasn't the case. There 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:59.840 was very modest investments. You know, it was a new 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.320 It was sort of tentative. They didn't know if they 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:06.360 could get a membership. I mean that varied, of course. 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:08.919 I mean, I mean I think there are you know, 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:12.240 there are places that were sort of born, uh you know, 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:16.280 a whole hog out of something else. I think Brookline 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:20.520 was to be all about horses at one point, right, 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:23.880 and and it wasn't and then you know, golf sort 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:26.919 of crept in and it's not about horses at all anymore. 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:29.359 And and so when you talk about a group like 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:34.080 the Apple Tree Gang, literally at the beginning, they're playing 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:34.840 in an. 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:38.800 Apple orchard, right and rented land, I think from a butcher, 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:39.920 if I'm not mistaken. 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:43.920 And so tell me about the style of golf that 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:46.760 that they would play in that I did. 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:50.440 You know that that's just really hard to imagine. I mean, 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:54.160 I think it's it's more, Uh, it certainly isn't about 0:05:54.279 --> 0:06:00.400 whacking the ball large distances. I think it's more, you know, 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:05.880 it's a game of sort of gigantic coquette. Instead of wickets, 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:09.039 you have a hole, and you know you're not hitting 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:13.599 the ball very far. You're not playing in any sort 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:17.279 of pristine conditions. You can only imagine how bad the 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:21.200 greens were, you know. I mean, the greens are probably 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:28.200 just you know moan circles. Especially on the early municipal courses. 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:31.440 They would just go out and you know, two hundred 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:34.080 and eighty yards in moa circle, and then go three 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.400 hundred yards in moa circle, and then they would go 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:38.920 one hundred and twenty yards in moa circle. I mean, 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:42.479 it was just there was a process of refinement that 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:46.200 was incredibly long from something I've had just tried to 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:51.880 describe to you know, the perfect golf courses now you 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.080 know the perfected golf courses that we have that are 0:06:55.480 --> 0:07:01.839 you know, unbelievably refined places that a lot of money 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:06.240 has been lavished upon. The early ones were really cheap. 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:10.320 Nobody wanted to really make any much of an investment, 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:13.600 and it all grew from that. 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:18.520 Taking a step back, taking a wider view here for 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:20.800 a second, I wonder if you could tell me a 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:24.440 little bit about the kind of cultural mood in the 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:30.160 late eighteen hundreds and specifically the factors in American culture 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:35.160 that led to the rise of the golf focused country club. 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.000 What were kind of those impulses that drove people to 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:41.520 want to participate in something like this. 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:44.840 Well, I think there were a number of them, and 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.880 they're sort of it's hard to arrange it by importance, 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:54.320 but health was an important one. That the cities of 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:58.640 the late nineteenth century were pretty ghastly places, again hard 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:04.040 for us to imagine. Their disease was much more common, 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:10.280 and there was certainly the idea that you wanted to 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:14.040 participate horses and carriages and stuff. There are all kinds 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:18.480 of subtle influences. But it was also in a lot 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:21.320 of Histhorians have talked about this. It was a time 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:25.680 when everybody was forming clubs for everything. There was a 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:29.800 lot of and a lot of associations. One I think 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.160 that somebody has used the phrase and era of associations. 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:38.360 I think the bar associations all are formeders, the American 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:42.720 Medical Association is formed during this period, all kinds of 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:46.120 I think the Boy Scouts were formed during this period, 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:50.600 and there was the idea that you could improve your life. 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:55.600 But being in these associations, they could provide clubhouses, and 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:59.800 they could provide events. One suspects they could provide romance, 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:03.839 men and women met one another. And if you look 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:07.920 at the individual towns. I know that a student of 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:11.480 mine wrote a really good paper on Waterville Main and 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:14.560 it was just Chocolate Block with organizations. 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:19.199 So I'd like to maybe explore a few other factors 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:21.720 that you talked about in your book as well. I 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:25.080 can prompt you on some of these. You refer to 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:30.599 the promotion of mental and physical health that golf and 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:33.480 the country club offered. Could you tell me a little 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:38.319 bit about the about about late Victorian anxiety and depression. 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:47.400 Yeah, well they called it neurasthenia. And it's oddly something 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:56.120 we recognize in ourselves that there's something about modern mechanized, urbanized, 0:09:56.200 --> 0:10:01.800 suburbanized society that just doesn't do this any good. I 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:05.960 mean to say it makes us sick is sort of dramatic. Uh, 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:08.840 you know, there are people who will say that. And 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:18.120 the involvement in something outside and particularly this is going 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:20.760 to be a new term from that I've thought about 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:26.720 since I wrote anything about golf called skilled practices. Taking 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:30.680 up a skilled practice, so two of them that you 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:34.280 might want to well, Tennis is obviously one, Golf is 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:39.120 obviously one. Fly Fishing is one that has been much 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:44.640 buttered about lately, and that a skilled practice outside is 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:48.599 good for you. It takes you away from the concerns 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:51.600 of your job, or the concerns of your family, or 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:57.600 the Russian pell mell of cities and makes you focus 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:01.960 on learning how to hit a six irons or backhand, 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:05.240 or you know, how to keep your fly line out 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:09.120 of the bushes. You know, having that outside of your 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:15.400 economic life and your social life is good for your 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:16.040 mental health. 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:19.640 On another note, So there's the there's the mental health piece, 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:21.760 which I think a lot of people will recognize. Now 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:24.240 that's the big word on golf at the moment. We're 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:26.760 all feeling cooped up, and you know, I sort of 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:30.559 recognized that in these late nineteenth century Victorians that they 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:33.400 were feeling kind of cooped up in their houses as 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:37.080 the cities were growing around them. I wonder if you 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:42.400 could also talk about the decline in what people perceived 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:47.520 as the traditional order in this era and how that 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:50.040 factored into the rise of the country club. 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:55.280 Yeah. I think that that's really hard to I mean, 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:59.600 I recognized that, you know, it was happening, and I 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:03.560 think maybe the best place to see that as a gender, 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:08.760 the whole idea that women should, you know, be domestic 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:11.520 and stay at home, and that it was it was 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:16.800 actually bad for them. It was prescribed in the late 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:22.199 nineteenth century that you know, the first prescription for neurasthenia 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.560 was to go home and be very calm, set in 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:28.120 your room. And you know, we have a lot of 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:33.480 both fiction and nonfiction testifying to the fact that women 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.880 were defined that way. And it's really interesting that in 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:41.079 twenty five or thirty years the idea that they should 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:44.320 be out and about and play golf, and people put 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:48.080 a lot of emphasis on the limits that were imposed 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:51.480 on women in golf. I think it's this is important 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:54.160 that they were playing at all, and that they were 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:57.640 involved in it. I think it's crystal clear to me 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:01.520 when I read all about all these clubs that while 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.079 they may not have played the game as much as 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:10.080 men did, they certainly were dominant in the clubhouse. The 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:14.360 social life was was certainly not something that women shied 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:16.480 away from, and they you know, they were part of 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:20.040 the whole thing. But they also played, certainly, you know, 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.920 the USGA had tournaments for them, and there were you know, 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:26.719 there were women playing, and by the twenties they were 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:28.120 really good women playing. 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.080 So this was a change in the social order that 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:35.760 the country Club seems in many ways to support, or 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:38.960 or or to even be a driver for. Even as 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:43.000 the country club did distinguish the genders and keep them 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:46.760 apart in some ways, it also gave the quote unquote 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:50.480 new woman an outlet for kind of physical activity and 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:51.280 social activity. 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:53.960 I mean, you certainly have one offs that are that 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:57.760 are kind of important, Marion Holland's being one. I mean, 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:02.360 Marion Holland's not is every where. It's a fascinating story, 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:04.760 but it's just a one off. You know, a rich girl, 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:07.520 her father loses all her money, so she goes out 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:11.840 and becomes rich herself, and you know, she plays virtually 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:16.840 every sport, and you know, I think horses and tennis 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:20.360 and golf being the three major ones. And then she 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:26.240 goes to California, strikes oil literally and then builds builds 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:30.360 past the tiempo has something to do with Cyprus Point, 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:32.520 and I think the evidence is pretty clear she had 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:36.360 something to do with Augusta. And so you know, that's 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:40.840 just the one off. And I think she's certainly gay, 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:44.080 I don't think, and I think you know that that 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.920 didn't seem to inhibit her in any ways, not to 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.920 suingest that you know, there wasn't a vicious bias against 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:55.280 gay in general, but certainly you can see that this 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:58.880 club life had a room for that, or at least 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:03.480 certain varieties of that club life. We're a lot more 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:08.360 tolerant maybe than the general uh, you know, society. But 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:13.200 and Marion Allen's is at least one piece of evidence 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:13.440 of that. 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:18.640 Today's episode is brought to you by our friends over 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:21.960 at Gooder. Nothing kicks off some aer quite like the 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:25.680 US Open. 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If you 0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:00.000 use the promo code t FE, you will get fit 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:03.720 fifteen percent off your entire order at Gooder dot com. 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:08.160 That's g oo dr dot com and use the promo 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.560 code TFBAT checkout for fifteen percent off your order. 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:19.160 Okay, so we have the gender narrative here, which is 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:23.480 which is incredibly interesting. You know, something that seems to 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:27.800 have certainly been breaking down in the late nineteenth century, 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:31.320 and that the club seems to be an attempt at 0:16:31.440 --> 0:16:37.080 a kind of bastion against, is the decline of local control. 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:40.880 And this might be kind of hard to define exactly, 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:44.840 but the decline of that sense that you know, people 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.240 who lived in a particular place were controlling their lives 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:51.880 and the invasion of the national and the international and 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:57.000 the corporate into people's local lives. Could you talk about 0:16:57.000 --> 0:16:58.840 that a little bit and how the how the country 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:00.000 club responded to it. 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:02.120 Here's the deal I think you just did. 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:06.080 Sorry, that's my tendency when I ask questions. 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:10.440 Sometimes No, that's the perfect And certainly, you know, if 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:14.480 we think about the iconic clubs, it doesn't that doesn't 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:16.840 come through. But when you come through the idea and 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.639 I try to find one, I think I found. I 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:24.080 found there's all kinds of them. From say, nineteen oh 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:29.840 five to nineteen thirty, I mean every small town and 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.639 I don't mean village, but I mean, you know, with 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:38.919 a substantial base of lawyers and doctors and middle class 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:41.920 people wanted to have their own club. And I think 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:43.520 one of the reasons they wanted to have their own 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:48.000 club was just exactly for this local control deal, this 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.960 local control feeling. And you're absolutely right. This is a 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:59.400 time when corporations, national corporations are taking over national transportation, railroads. 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:04.840 Cert historians have generally accepted that as a team for 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:08.760 the period well, you know, eighteen eighty to nineteen thirty. 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:11.800 In that fifty year period, you know, we went from 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:15.240 a time when you know, you probably met the same 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:19.560 people and dealt with them economically on the streets of 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:23.000 where you lived every day. And by the end of 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:25.960 the period, you didn't do that anymore. Ever, you work 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:31.040 for a big corporation. The stores that soldier food weren't 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:34.080 run by you know, a guy you knew, or owned 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:35.479 by a guy you knew, that they were owned by 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:39.720 a big corporation. Everything. And there's a famous book called 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:41.120 The Incorporation of America. 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:44.080 Trying to think who wrote Alan Tracktenberg. 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:47.880 Yeah, Alan Trachtenberg, And you know, I mean it's all 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:53.159 detailed in there. And you know the LLC funny. I 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:55.480 just talked to a guy on the phony the other day, 0:18:55.640 --> 0:19:00.399 was doing a work on the idea that the rise 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:05.959 of the LLC, the limited liability corporation, that corporation was 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:10.560 the singular most important fact in American history, that it's 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:16.520 the structural outline of life in America. And you know, 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:19.359 he's got a point. And I think the country club 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:24.640 was an attempt to assert or create a place where 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:30.360 local people stayed in control. They've made an investment and 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:34.920 they ran it their way, and it became a matter 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:38.719 of local pride, you know, it became almost I think 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:40.360 one of the things was that there was a sort 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:45.359 of civic pride element to a lot of small local 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:47.320 clubs that if you had one, you were kind of 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:50.680 on the map as a real city, as a real town, 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:59.200 and to some degree people use those as to draw tourism. 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.840 So you that the country club in this vein was 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:08.600 an attempt to recreate the long lost you know, maybe 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:14.159 not completely real, but somehow culturally remembered village. And of 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:16.600 course you don't literally mean that the country clubs were 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:20.480 designed as villages. So what do you mean when when 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:24.199 you say that the country club tried to recreate that? 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:27.480 It's it's first of all, it's just a matter of size. 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:32.119 It's a matter of having a community of the size 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:34.399 of which you determine how big is your club going 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:36.479 to be? Is it going to be three hundred or 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:40.359 three thousand or whatever. And it's also limited in space 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:44.040 and scope. You know, people say, well, you know, that's 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:46.080 kind of a weird idea, And I said, well, why 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:49.960 did Jack Nicholas call his place, Mirfield village. It's not 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:55.199 a village. It's a massive, you know, golf project with 0:20:55.560 --> 0:21:00.760 suburban houses attached. You know, this gets even weird weirder. 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:06.080 You know why is Greenwich village called Greenwich village. That 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:09.199 doesn't make a lot of sense unless just the word 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:14.560 village means a lot to people. It means something smaller, 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:21.159 something more intimate, something limited in scope, something not particularly 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:26.959 dynamic in terms of forging into the future, and you know, 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:32.199 changing things that it's a commitments to traditionalism, you know. 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:35.840 So it's really I mean, the village word gets used 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:40.520 a lot for things that really aren't villages. There's a 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:46.840 weird psychological phenomenon going on there. And the only thing 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:50.720 I've ever said is a sort of commitment to traditionalism, 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:56.040 a commitment to stability, uh uh, you know, and the 0:21:56.119 --> 0:21:59.920 idea that this this isn't a dynamic urban place. 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:03.320 And an attempt to create tradition out of thin. 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:05.760 Air, right out of names. 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:10.000 Yeah, instant tradition, which was just so American. Another piece 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:14.320 of this seems to be the rise of immigration in 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:18.960 the late eighteen hundreds from Eastern and Southern European countries 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:23.679 as well as from Latin America and the desire to 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:28.800 create a more racially homogeneous zone away from this city. 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:31.280 Would you say this was an important factor and could 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:32.320 you talk about it a little bit? 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:35.800 Yeah, Well, I mean I think there are two things, 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:41.400 and it's ethno religious and that I think the conflicts 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:47.240 are as much as Protestant leadership class trying to have 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:51.880 a space without Jews or Catholics, and in a much 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:55.800 smaller sense Catholics and Jews trying to have some spaces 0:22:56.080 --> 0:23:03.920 without Protestants. But the conflicticularly between Protestants and Jews was ferocious. 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:08.840 I mean in the Pinehurst books, I mean I ran across. 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:13.000 I mean they had a program I was going to 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:18.080 say massive, but a very substantial program to keep Jews 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:21.959 out of the hotels, from ever coming here. And then 0:23:22.040 --> 0:23:27.600 the deeds here forbid anyone to sell land to Jews 0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:33.159 or obviously African Americans or Indians. And so the idea 0:23:33.160 --> 0:23:37.760 of creating these sort of free of Jewish influences and 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:43.560 free from Jews by Protestants was a tremendous factor in 0:23:43.880 --> 0:23:51.240 big projects like Pinehurst, in smaller country clubs everywhere. Vance 0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:55.880 Packard actually came up with a couple of examples from 0:23:55.880 --> 0:23:59.959 his research that I used where Jews were perfectly integrate 0:24:00.280 --> 0:24:03.600 in the town, they did business with one another because 0:24:03.600 --> 0:24:07.280 they simply had to. And then when the Protestants created 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:10.800 a country club, they excluded them all, they refused to 0:24:11.240 --> 0:24:15.200 have memberships, which he thought was a real important sort 0:24:15.240 --> 0:24:19.480 of thing. That these new inventions like huntry clubs kind 0:24:19.480 --> 0:24:22.320 of reinvigorated the conflicts. 0:24:23.040 --> 0:24:25.960 So do you think that these we could use the 0:24:26.040 --> 0:24:32.720 term racially homogenous or ethno, religiously homogeneous clubs. Do you 0:24:32.720 --> 0:24:36.880 think they're in some ways a direct response to rising 0:24:37.119 --> 0:24:40.000 integration in the other spheres of society? 0:24:40.600 --> 0:24:43.240 Oh yeah, Oh do you mean, did you say integration 0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:44.080 or immigration? 0:24:44.560 --> 0:24:47.680 Well, I guess both. I did say integration as any. 0:24:47.720 --> 0:24:50.600 So you know that one of the you know, there 0:24:50.680 --> 0:24:52.920 was this there was this really thorough attempt to try 0:24:52.920 --> 0:24:57.159 to keep Jewish people out of Protestant clubs, while at 0:24:57.200 --> 0:24:59.960 the same time, in many ways Jewish people were making 0:25:00.240 --> 0:25:02.600 in roads in society and politics. 0:25:02.960 --> 0:25:05.640 No, no, I think that's true, and I think it's true. 0:25:05.640 --> 0:25:09.440 Of I think the sharp lines between Catholics and Protestants 0:25:10.040 --> 0:25:12.920 blurred a lot, and I think obviously one of the 0:25:13.480 --> 0:25:16.040 secrets here is intermarriage. You know, and I think the 0:25:16.119 --> 0:25:19.879 statistics show that, you know, the twentieth century, intermarriage between 0:25:19.920 --> 0:25:24.760 the three main religions has gone up pretty steadily. It 0:25:24.920 --> 0:25:28.320 used to be a big issue, and it just you know, 0:25:28.800 --> 0:25:31.119 well it still is to some extent, I think, but 0:25:32.280 --> 0:25:35.640 it isn't like it used to be, where the three 0:25:35.680 --> 0:25:38.520 groups are sort of heyometrically sealed off from one another. 0:25:39.040 --> 0:25:42.920 You know, certainly a whole different world in nineteen twenty 0:25:42.960 --> 0:25:45.680 one when you were putting a club together, you know, 0:25:45.800 --> 0:25:48.560 I mean, the assumption was you just wouldn't have Jews 0:25:48.640 --> 0:25:54.520 or Catholics. In some few cases, you know, Jews made 0:25:54.560 --> 0:25:57.400 clubs for Jews, and there were a few Catholic clubs. 0:25:57.560 --> 0:26:00.600 There are even a few Black clubs. You know, it 0:26:00.600 --> 0:26:03.640 gets complicated with a lot of forces. But I think 0:26:03.680 --> 0:26:10.120 you're probably right that integration in a larger society led 0:26:10.720 --> 0:26:14.760 inexorably kind of heart, you know, and in our own time, 0:26:16.040 --> 0:26:20.000 you know, I mean, it took augusta seventy years to 0:26:20.119 --> 0:26:23.119 finally you know. And then I think the gender issue 0:26:23.160 --> 0:26:27.359 is a separate issue, you know, I think there are 0:26:27.720 --> 0:26:31.080