Talk:Jonathan Club

Untitled
I propose the deletion of "prestigious" from the first line. See comment at Category talk: Traditional gentlemen's clubs. 45ossington 16:32, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

While going through a box of old papers I found a certificate that a distant uncle was a "resident member" of this club in 1936. Not being familiar with this club, I found the wiki article. Comparing article and certificate, I found two items of possible historical interest to this page
 * A paragraph describing dates of incorporation (apparently this club existed previously but perhaps was incorporated or re-incorporated under some new statute)... "A NON PROFIT CORPORATION INCORPORATED MARCH 4, 1935, UNDER THE LAWS OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, PURSUANT TO DIVISION FIRST, PART IV, TITLE XII, ARTICLE I OF THE CIVIL CODE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA."
 * On the back of the certificate, there is what looks to be part of the bylaws stating the requirements for residence. "RESIDENT MEMBERS.  Article II.  Section 3.  Any Male citizen, 21 years of age or over, whose place of business or residence is within twenty-five (25) miles of the center of the City of Los Angeles, shall be eligible for Resident Membership." ... " The territorial limits for Resident Membership shall be included in the following described territory using the County Court House in the City of Los Angeles as a hub, and describing a circle whose radius shall be approximately twenty-five (25) miles, and being approximately described as follows:  Commencing at a point on the coast midway between Point Los Angeles and Point duma, thence following the lines of a circle northeasterlly, and including among other settlements, Calabassas, Chatsworth Park, San Fernando, Glendora, Spadra, Covina and Lemon; such circle intersecting the coast line of the Pacific Ocean at a point southeast of Anaheim Landing, provided however, that the City of Long Beach shall be deemed non-resident territory."  I don't know the historical reasons, but it's interesting that Long Beach was excluded.

I'm not sure if any of this might be of interest or helpful, but I know that items fixing dates and places can be helpful in constructing histories. If appropriate, I could scan the certificate, as I suppose it might be considered a "published" source, although I'm not sure how a paper found in an old box qualifies as a good source (but might be considered Original Research...) so for now it's on the talk page. Meadowvistan1984 17:05, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Changes of October 2013
I did a careful revision of the article, removing quite a bit of unsourced information but leaving a couple of grafs for which we still need citations. There is much more that can be said about this club, but it all has to have documentation. Thanks very much. GeorgeLouis (talk) 19:20, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

how has this page...
...been whitewashed or recreated in a way that erased the long history of discrimination and bigotry the club has been guilty of for decades in the past? Articles available on this VERY SITE have that information in spades, I quote below from the entry Membership Discrimination in California Social clubs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Membership_discrimination_in_California_social_clubs (all endnotes and article substantiation can be found on the page cited above)

The Jonathan Club, a likewise prestigious social group, was established in Los Angeles in 1894.[2]

In 1965, the Jonathan Club was charged with "anti-Negro" and "anti-Jew" bias and a complaint was raised that the membership dues of Mayor Sam Yorty were being paid by city taxpayers to support such discrimination. Yorty told a news conference he knew nothing about such a circumstance.[7]

The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith said that in 1962 twelve of the "leading country clubs" and eight of the "most prestigious city clubs" in the Greater Los Angeles area were open only to Christians, but in 1969 those figures had dropped to eleven and five. Six of the city and country clubs that discriminated in 1969 were listed in Los Angeles, five in Pasadena, two in Glendale and one each in La Habra, Long Beach and Upland.[8]

In July 1969, there were no Jewish members in the California Club but "at least one Jew" in the Jonathan Club, yet the latter club hadn't "taken in any Jewish members for at least two decades," Neil C. Sandberg regional director of the American Jewish Committee, told Jack Smith of the Los Angeles Times.[2]

Smith wrote that a campaign had been going on for ten years to "quietly but unrelentingly" persuade "what has been called the 'last bastion' of anti-Semitism in America — the downtown men's clubs of the nation's big cities" to allow Jews to become members. Led by the American Jewish Committee, "with the active aid of the Antidefamation League, American Jewish Congress . . . and other Jewish organizations," the campaign was successful in the case of the Stock Exchange Club, the University Club and the Chancery Club, but the Jonathan and the California clubs remained closed. The campaign was publicized upon the report of a seven-year study made at UCLA by Reed M. Powell, a sociologist.[2] In May 1975, a touring choir from the United States Air Force Academy decided not to give a proposed concert at the Jonathan Club because Academy officers had been informed that the club had a policy against hosting blacks.[9]

Loretta Thompson-Glickman, member of the Pasadena city Board of Directors, recalled that when first elected to the board in 1977, she and Jo Heckman, the only other female director, had to enter the University Club in that city through a side door. Attorney Candis Ipswich said she applied for membership the same year and was rejected because "I was the wrong sex."[10]

J. Peter Dunston, a Washington, D.C., businessman who was spending a year in Los Angeles, was "surprised" in February 1978 to find "how directly" the prejudices of the Jonathan Club were expressed when he applied for membership and was interviewed by the membership committee. He was told that "Jews and blacks were not welcome in the club." One of the committee members later "denied everything," but the other said "We explained it to him in a different way. We didn't use the word discriminate. 'Invite' was the word."[11]

In 1982, the city's Community Redevelopment Agency "barred its employees from conducting any business" at the Jonathan Club, and law firms, banks and government agencies adopted policies boycotting the club.[21]

In October of the same year, Prince Philip of Great Britain, on a visit to Los Angeles to inspect equestrian sites for the 1984 Olympics, turned down an invitation to an evening at the California Club when he discovered that his host, Mayor Tom Bradley, refused to attend because the club "prohibits women and has no black members."[22]

On May 28, 1986, Lodwrick M. Cook, chief executive officer of the oil giant Arco, sent a memo announcing that the firm would no longer reimburse executives for memberships in "discriminatory private clubs." The order affected "about 30" people who belonged to the California and Jonathan clubs in Los Angeles and the Dallas Petroleum Club.[23]

At the beginning of 1985 the Santa Monica Planning Commission "grudgingly approved" a permit from the Jonathan Club to expand the club's facilities on the Santa Monica beach. The council also voted to send a letter to the state's Coastal Commission stating that the club's membership policies might affect "the public's right to beach access." "Previous councils had refused to act on the matter because of the club's alleged discriminatory policies. . . . Councilwoman Cheryl Rhoden told a club official 'not one grain of sand' would be given to the club until it changed its membership policies."[26] On July 25, 1985, the Coastal Commission did order the club to adopt nondiscriminatory policies before it could expand its recreational use onto state-owned beach property.[21]

How on earth was this allowed to be removed or not noted in the article? Its past racism and bigotry are of great importance to anyone who has even cursory interest in the club.


 * It seems like User:RodgerDodger1 is pretty consistently trying to whitewash a lot of the club's history. I suspect he's a member (or otherwise affiliated with) the club, as he's only ever edited this page and has a tendency to add in some pretty self-aggrandizing information.107.135.62.229 (talk) 00:52, 18 April 2019 (UTC)