A Relative Advantage: Sociology of the San Francisco Bohemian Club

A Relative Advantage: Sociology of the San Francisco Bohemian Club

BY Peter Martin Phillips
B.A. (University of Santa Clara) 1970
M.A. (California State University, Sacramento) 1974
M.A. (University of California, Davis) 1992

DISSERTATION

Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN SOCIOLOGY IN THE OFFICE OF GRADUATE STUDIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS

Sociology of Elite Men’s Clubs

For over 150 years private men’s clubs have existed as a place of personal retreat for
socio-economic elite men in American society. U.S. elite men’s clubs are seen by some
social scientists as the American equivalent to European male aristocracy. For example,
Max Weber writes about U.S. clubs;
In American mere money in itself… purchases power, but not social
honor… In America; the old tradition respected the self made man more
than the heir, and the avenue to social honor consisted in affiliation with a
genteel fraternity in a distinguished college… At present time affiliation
with a distinguished club is essential above all else. …Here the equality of
gentlemen prevailed absolutely… He who did not succeed in joining was
no gentleman… (Gerth and Mill 1978 p.310)
Defining a gentleman, in Weber’s perspective, was one of the essential characteristics of
U.S. men’s clubs and a mark of success in American Society.
Private men’s clubs have been described as a fundamental element of maintaining
the “old boy networks” of power in modern society (Rogers 1988 p.179). Progressive
attacks on the exclusivity of all-white-male clubs, while not new historically1
, have increased in the last three decades (Baxter 1992). This has led clubs to initiate token