Talk:Gentlemen's club

Merge proposal
I propose merging Gentlemen's club into Private members' club. These old social clubs continue to exist and provide the same facilities but have relaxed membership rules. At this point, "Gentlemen's club" is mostly a retrograde name and the context can be explained in the history section.Abhay Saraf (talk) 08:39, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Article name
This article began life as "Gentlemen's Clubs" because that is what the clubs to which I belong call such clubs and because that is how Anthony Lejeune styles them. Similarly, private clubs exclusively for women (such as the New Cavendish Club) call themselves "Ladies' Clubs". --Theo (Talk) 19:17, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Just for awareness: googling gentlemen's.club site:uk finds 4300 articles, while gentleman's.club site:uk finds 4400. I believe and agree that the first spelling is the traditional one, but it's devolved over time. Globally, men's beats man's 73K to 43K. --Dhartung | Talk 23:16, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * I performed the same analysis before selecting the name (including varied apostrophe placements) and found a similarly even split but I did not analyse how many of the hits pertained to what were originally called 'gentlemen's clubs'. Google can be a bit of a blunt instrument for this kind of analysis. --Theo (Talk) 23:27, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

English Gentlemen's Clubs, description of
I'm not sure it's correct for the disambiguation entry pointing to the UK variant to call these "Country Clubs". I say this because most of them are in cities, in fact usually London, and so they don't offer facilities which are usual for US Country Clubs (e.g. golf and so forth). --JamesYoungman (Talk) 21:30, 28 Aug 2005 (UTC)


 * How should we describe them, then? Max Spades 21:49, 28 August 2005


 * The current text is OK (has it been changed?). Otherwise, they could be described as "social and dining clubs for affluent or aristocratic men (and, sometimes, women)"  --JamesYoungman (Talk)  23:36, 30 Aug 2005 (UTC)
 * I have refined the description although I feel that it still implies that these are an English phenomenon. Many clubs of this kind now admit women and most now are outside the UK.  Consider the University Club in Philadelphia, The Harvard Club in Boston and New York and many others around the world. &mdash;Theo  (Talk) 16:13, 31 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Even in the US Midwest there existed what I will call city clubs very similar to the English Gentlemen's Clubs. In Saint Paul The Minnesota club and in Minneapolis the Minneapolis Club (still exists) have operated since the turn of the 20th century. I believe the term Country Club may have been an American invention, to distinguish it from the city clubs that one belonged to. In England, I do not believe Golf Clubs were traditionally called Country Clubs as they are in the US.  Are there any Country Clubs in England that do not provide golf and if so are more properly called golf clubs, many of which do not own a golf course but simply are an organization of players, which is the case even in the home of golf, St. Andrews.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrluckey (talk • contribs) 19:38, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Qualifications for membership of the Travellers' Club
Rule 6 of the club constitution, written in about 1814, states "That no person be considered eligible to the Travellers' Club, who shall not have travelled out of the British islands to a distance of at least 500 miles from London in a direct line." This quotation is given here. An important point is the formation of the phrase British islands. Note that the word "island" is not capitalised and therefore in effect means "the islands of, or belonging to, the British". At the time the constitution was written Ireland was a British island, so the meaning is clear and the British islands in this context translate directly to the British Isles, meaning any island of the group, including the Isle of Man and such like. We need a piped link to British Isles from this term to clarify the original meaning. A link to British Islands is inappropriate; wrong in fact. This latter term originated in 1889 and now has a very specific meaning that excludes Ireland. Consequently a link to the Wikipedia article on the British Islands is erroneous. A link the British Isles, on the other hand, clarifies the meaning of the rule, precisely. The original author of the Travellers Club article got is slightly wrong when he capitalised "island". See the original article here. CarterBar (talk) 14:50, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Have you references for this? Otherwise, it's really just Original Research.  The quote says British Islands. There's nothing to suggest that this means British Isles....  It is just as easy to say that the original author meant Great Britain... In the absense of a reference, there is no basis for piping to British Isles. --Bardcom (talk) 23:46, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Not OR, just common sense. It obviously didn't mean British Islands, so what else could British islands (plural) mean? The author didn't say Great Britain, he said British islands (see the reference), which at that time included Ireland and all the others owned by Britain, but I've explained all this already. Anyway, the term clearly needs clarification, hence the link to British Isles. Alternatively we could have a footnote for the term, explaining the possible meanings - how about that? In the meantime I've reverted, just so that someone doesn't think the quote meant British Islands. CarterBar (talk) 10:46, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Bardcom, yo've now got it redirecting to British Islands, which I'm sure you agree is wrong. So I'm going to write a footnote as suggested above, to explain the possible meaning of the term as far as the historical period is concerned. CarterBar (talk) 12:43, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:FOOD Tagging
This article talk page was automatically added with WikiProject Food and drink banner as it falls under Category:Restaurants or one of its subcategories. If you find this addition an error, Kindly undo the changes and update the inappropriate categories if needed. You can find the related request for tagging here -- TinucherianBot (talk) 09:35, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Swiss Gentlemen´s Club
I have find a good swiss gentlemens club. You can visit it here: Gensclub. Here you can see, it is not only for men. It can be also for woman. —Preceding unsigned comment added by OpelAstraJC (talk • contribs) 09:10, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Catholic bishops
Critics of the Catholic hierarchy often claim that bishops' conferences are built to resemble a gentlemen's club, because of their inherent patriarchal character which resembles the power structure of ancient Greco-Roman civlizations. For instance, Jesuit author Thomas J. Reese makes the claim in his 1992 book A flock of shepherds. This could perhaps be included in the article, along with apppropriate sources of course. ADM (talk) 08:01, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Freemasonry
I fail to see the relevence of Freemasonry in the related links. Gentleman's clubs have no specific links with Freemasonry, nor is Freemasonry mentioned anywhere in the article. I propose removing this, unless anyone has any particular reason for keeping it? --87.86.242.99 (talk) 17:20, 4 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Hm, your objection is well-justified, although there is a link between the two that makes some intuitive sense... the difficulty, though, is how to articulate it. Certainly a great deal of what freemasonry involves has nothing whatsoever to do with these clubs, and vice-versa.  Yet both are social, members-only establishments that take some care as to whom they admit as members.  Well, I take your point that this may not be sufficient to include a random reference to freemasonry on this article, but at the same time I would be interested to read a bit more on the subject of the similarities and differences of private clubs vs. masonic lodges. --163.1.150.29 (talk) 01:23, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Brothel's
The majority of "gentlemen's clubs" in New Zealand seem to be brothel's, to judge from google. How widely is the term being misapplied elsewhere? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.98.175.68 (talk) 00:56, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Capitalization
When not referring to specific clubs, "gentlemen's club", "men's club" and "club" are not proper nouns and shouldn't be capitalized. I've corrected this; hope it's okay w/everyone. – AndyFielding (talk) 08:45, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

The oldest gentleman club in the World is in Italy
"Il Circolo degli Uniti" in Siena, Tuscany, founded in 1657 and still existing.

http://www.italy24.ilsole24ore.com/art/arts-and-leisure/2015-05-25/the-world-s-oldest-club-circolo-uniti-is-direct-link-to-siena-s-past--102015.php?uuid=ABRfC5lD

Magnagr (talk) 16:39, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Sources for "Bread and Cheese Club"
1. "Bread And Cheese Club." Encyclopædia Britannica (2014): Research Starters. Web. 13 July 2016.

2. Marckwardt, Albert H. "The Chronology And Personnel Of The Bread And Cheese Club." American Literature 6.4 (1935): 389. Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File. Web. 13 July 2016.

3. Churchill, Winsoar, and Alan Klehr. "London's Gentlemen's Clubs." British Heritage 21.3 (2000): 50. MasterFILE Elite. Web. 13 July 2016.

Tina Rod (talk) 02:55, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Outline of the "Bread and Cheese Club"
My outline will be pretty simple. I am going to add The Bread and Cheese Club to the "Gentlemen's Club" page as well since the both interconnect. So the changes that will be added are: inserting more reliable/peer reviewed sources, finding more similar clubs, and how these clubs are similar. If I have time I will post more information; but for right now I am going to add the "Bread and Cheese" club to the "Gentlemen's Club" under the "United States" section.

Tina Rod (talk) 02:57, 14 July 2016 (UTC) Tina Rod (talk) 03:39, 14 July 2016 (UTC)

Work on the B&CC in draft form first
I've removed the material recently added, as it needs sources for each statement, embedded in the text like that. The best place to work on a new paragraph is your own sandbox, but failing that, here on the article talk page is a fine place to polish the material before it hits the article itself. I'm happy to work with you to improve this:


 * Also, there was a similar club found in New York city named the "Bread an Cheese Club." The Bread and Cheese club was also known as the "Lunch Club." that began in 1827 to 1827. Created by the author James Fenimore Cooper, the club consisted of nearly thirty-five individual scholars, patrons, merchants, lawyers, writers, and artists that held private meetings in the Washington Hall. Some of the most familiar members of the club include: Thomas Cole, Wiley, William Dunlap, Charles Sands, Samuel Morse, and several others. This was rather a social and cultural club for the Upper class of early NY history. According to an article found of Galileo “The club was an outgrowth of “Cooper’s Lunch,” an impromptu gathering of Cooper’s network of intellectual friends, which first met in 1822 in the back room (“the Literary Den”) of a bookstore owned by Charles Wiley.” The meetings of the Bread and Cheese Club were typically held on Thursday afternoons and ended in the evening after dinner. The meal was prepared by “Abigail Jones, an African American artist, with food supplied by members, who hosted or catered individual meetings in rotation” (Galileo). Cooper was the head of the club, whom written many books and collaborated with his team members to execute his writings. However, after three years of leading the club, Cooper moved away from New York in 1826, the club had diminished and soon branched off into different clubs.

Carbon Caryatid (talk) 14:27, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

"Gentlemen's clubs in Britain and the British Empire"
... seems to be a more appropriate title for the current article. From the point of view of a continental European, the current largely unreferenced article reads as if a biased Brit has written it from the top of their head. The assumption that a gentlemen's club is an exclusively or typically British phenomenon is at least partly incorrect, as was pointed out above with the example of an older club in Italy. I do not know enough about the subject to rewrite the article but it should at least include a reference to the Sociétés d'Émulation (unfortunately also a poor and slightly misleading article), established in many cities in France, Belgium and the Netherlands throughout the late 18th-century. They were established under the the influence of the French Enlightenment but mainly served as social clubs for the upper classes, in many cases occupying grand buildings in town centres. In a small city like Maastricht, the Netherlands, several gentlemen's clubs were active in the late 18th and throughout the 19th century, originally established for military officers, later also admitting civilians (upper class men only). Kleon3 (talk) 08:09, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
 * It's a valid point, although without sources it will prove difficult to expand the article. You could add a warning banner ("not global enough") or formally propose a renaming; i wouldn't oppose either. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 17:33, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Another way to look at it is to recognize that "gentlemen's club" has terminology problems, using jargon from British culture, from largely males-only culture, and from elitist culture, which prefers not to use the word "elite" in naming its social clubs. But its categorically a social club with an elitist formulation, so "elite social club" seems like a good rename option. -Inowen (talk) 02:37, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

American clubs
I commend the recent additions by an anon editor, who clearly has access to good sources. The section on the US is becoming top-heavy, however, and it would make sense to move it to Gentlemen's clubs in the United States, only we don't yet have such an article, having to make do with List of gentlemen's clubs in the United States. Is it time to create a new article? And could I persuade the new editor to create an account, for ease of conversation? --Carbon Caryatid (talk) 17:40, 26 April 2020 (UTC)