The American Country Club: Its Origins and Development

The words ""country club"" are almost always accompanied by the word ""exclusive"" and images of cultural islands of economic power, social status and minority discrimination. Here, Mayo, professor in the School of Architecture and Urban Design at the Univ. of Kansas and author of The American Grocery Store, traces their history from the dining clubs of the early 1800s, through the city clubs, and then the blossoming of country clubs in the first decades of the 20th century. The rise of the American country club coincided with suburbanization, new methods of transportation and the desire of the elite to separate themselves from the lower classes. But Mayo goes beyond social and economic history. For example, he includes philosophical debates about the country club as an exemplar of republican (little r) values: one magazine writer went so far as to say ""[t]he country club seems almost destined to satisfy the somewhat communistic dream"" of such utopian experiments as Brook Farm. The role of sports, of women, of the Great Depression, of WWII and of the rebellious 1960s are all reflected in the changing face of the country club and are all adeptly and readably charted by Mayo. Last but not least, this is also a fascinating study of the growth of an American business--how problems of transportation, location, rules, management, activities, design and maintenance led to new solutions and new problems. Mayo turns one pocket of American history inside out to show how the country club reflects not just wealth, but America's political landscape. 38 b&w photos. (Feb.)