Beschreibung:

10 pp. 18.8x12 cm (7½x4¾"), printed wrappers. First Edition. The very rare foundation document of the Commonwealth Club, with the constitution, organization, list of officers, board of governors, and members. It is the earliest extant Club publication. OCLC lists just one copy, at the University of California Berkeley. The Commonwealth Club of California is a non-profit, non-partisan educational organization based in Northern California. Founded in 1903, it is the oldest and largest public affairs forum in the United States. Membership is open to everyone. The Commonwealth Club has over 20,000 members and organizes nearly 500 programs each year on topics ranging across politics, culture, society, and the economy. Around 100,000 people attend these events in person annually. The Commonwealth Club was founded in 1903 by Edward F. Adams, the Agricultural Editor at the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper. Four prominent California leaders—University of California president Benjamin Ide Wheeler, San Francisco Chronicle managing editor John P. Young, San Francisco Normal School (later San Francisco State University) president Frederick Burk, and William P. Lawler, a judge who later became a California Supreme Court Justice—co-founded the organization with Adams. The original name for the Club was "The Agora," which in Greek means an open place of civic assembly, but it was quickly changed to "Commonwealth Club," connoting a quest for the common good. The first president of the club was merchant, author, and public official Harris Weinstock.