-
Title
-
en
Chicago's Women's Athletic Club
-
Description
-
The article highlights the Chicago Women’s Athletic Club, which was the first athletic and social club exclusively for women, and the most expensive of its kind in the U.S. at the time of its opening. Offering luxurious amenities in a $100,000 facility, it charged an unprecedented $100 initiation fee, attracting an elite membership of 700 women. Despite initial skepticism, the club flourished and inspired similar ventures, such as one led by Mrs. John Jacob Astor in New York.
Located on Michigan Avenue, the club featured lavish facilities, including a marble swimming pool, gymnasium, and various beauty services, catering to high-society women such as Mrs. Philip D. Armour and Mrs. Cyrus McCormick. Members participated in activities ranging from aesthetic calisthenics to swimming and fencing, while also enjoying luxurious relaxation spaces. Although men were not officially involved, they were often present at social events hosted by the club.
The article credits the club’s success to Mrs. Paulina Harriette Lyon, who overcame initial doubts to bring her vision to life. Plans for a new $600,000 facility, complete with expanded athletic and social amenities, were in progress, promising to further enhance the club's prestige.
-
Creator
-
Bertha Damaris Knobe (Author)
-
Date
-
June 1905
-
volume
-
39
-
number
-
6
-
page start
-
539
-
page end
-
546
-
Rights
-
Public Domain
-
content
-
en
Chicago’s Women’s Athletic Club
BY BERTHA DAMARIS KNOBE
Illustrated with photographs taken especially for HARPER’S BAZAR
When the fashionable Chicago Women’s Athletic Club opened its doors to society dames several years ago, it ranked as the only athletic club for women in the world, and the most expensive women’s club in the country. It offered an elegant $100,000 equipment for beautifying through physical culture and, in return, it asked the unprecedented initiation fee of $100, with proportionate dues for privileges. Though a unique and costly experiment, inviting the pessimistic prophecy of short life, it stands today stamped with the successful membership of seven hundred and the promise from its promoter of new $600,000 quarters replete with every luxury and beauty-preserving appliance. The fact that it serves as a prototype for a similar organization recently launched, under the leadership of Mrs. John Jacob Astor, by the society women of New York, deprives it of the proud prestige of being the “only athletic club exclusively for the fair sex,” though the sincerest flattery of imitation has its compensations. That letters of interested inquiry, moreover, come from prominent women in Paris, Florence, and other foreign cities shows that the original idea, so opposed to the “pale and interesting” feminine type idealized by novelists of yesterday, induces most distinguished consideration abroad.
Commensurate with the high price of membership, this club has sumptuous quarters unmatched outside of London. The building, to begin with, occupies a most desirable downtown site on Michigan Avenue, opposite the classic Art Institute solitarily adorning the lakefront park, and thus overlooking this attractive space and the opalescent waters of Lake Michigan. Every morning the handsomest carriages rolling down this thoroughfare stop before the imposing edifice simply marked on its doors with the monogram, C. W. A. C., and the member, ushered in by an obsequious man in uniform, finds many athletic pleasures amid luxurious surroundings. The initiation fee of $100 is supplemented by annual dues of $40, and payment for every service after one officially arrives, but the appointments, from the white marble swimming pool of Oriental splendor to the perfect cuisine in the great green dining room, afford the creature comforts so common in the American man’s club, and so exceptional in that of the American woman. The fair fortunates with purses sufficiently inflated to meet these assessments are naturally women of social position; indeed, from the beginning the two promoters—the president, Mrs. Philip D. Armour, widow of the multimillionaire, and the secretary and manager, Mrs. Paulina Harriette Lyon—have made personal standing the prerequisite. The honorary membership includes notables such as Mrs. William B. McKinley, and the regular roll includes such names as Mrs. Cyrus McCormick, Mrs. Emmons Blaine, Mrs. Chauncey Blair, Mrs. J. Ogden Armour, Mrs. Otto Young, Mrs. Harold McCormick, and Mrs. John J. Mitchell, thus bespeaking strict preservation of this standard.
Though in that experimental beginning masculine paragraphers, believing the club a passing fad, declared the women would plant pond-lilies in the pool and pose in the gymnasium as hostesses for pink teas, these society dames have taken to athletics most seriously. Not unexpectedly, this delightful trysting place has developed into a fashionable center for social affairs, but, at the same time, the number of enthusiasts who espouse either the gentle methods of beauty-making known to Greek maidens of old, or the more ardent muscle-making exercise of today, increases. On the one hand, the member may surrender to the soothing manipulations of the masseuse, who finally tucks her away in one of the resting rooms for a siesta; she may lounge in an easy robe in the Turkish bath department after having been through the hands of a trained attendant; or, perhaps, an occasional lesson in aesthetic calisthenics, when she goes through graceful movements to the rhythm of music, gives the finishing touch to her beautifying aspirations. The swimming pool, gymnasium, and bowling alley, on the other hand, offer allurements for more strenuous physical development, and members are by no means exceptional who do a backward turn from the springboard into the pool, swing by their toes on the trapeze, or scientifically strike the punching bag. That some of the members recently posed before the camera in gymnasium costume, so readers of Harper’s Bazar might see their sport, shows their sincere interest in their extraordinary club.
Upon passing into the lower reception room one is instantly impressed with the all-pervading air of quiet refinement. Contrasting with the average American women’s club, wherein incessant study of Tolstoi or Ibsen induces the culture which Emerson declared “always ends in a headache,” and in common with the English women’s club which usually approximates that of the American man, this Chicago Women’s Athletic Club roundly repudiates intellectual attainment, speaking officially, for the luxurious life of relaxation. After a social turn in the upper reception room, which leads into the writing room with its cozy escritoires, on one side, and the library with magazines and seductive davenports, on the other, the member usually proceeds to her private dressing room. Having exchanged her street gown for the club costume, a dark-blue blouse with big scarlet collar and short divided skirt, she enters the great circular gymnasium on the first floor, entirely finished in hardwood and provided with rope ladders, performing bars, running track, and other athletic paraphernalia.
During the morning the gymnasium serves as a popular meeting place. Under skilled instructors are regular classes, from fancy dancing for those who consider it a post-graduate course in physical culture and “by that step so unconfined, by that neat kick up behind” seek graceful poise of body, to most intricate bouts in the fine art of fencing. The already-mentioned training in aesthetic calisthenics has been supplemented lately by mental-physical culture under a male teacher, who directs these society women in evolutions of arms to expand the chest or rotary motion of the body to reduce the waist, and, as soft music keeps rhythmic time to movements, explains in “new-thought” parlance: “Beauty is not a matter of muscle and bone, however symmetrical they may be, but mind—spirit, will, ego, whatever you please to call it—must be in harmony with the voluntary muscle.” Between classes, basket-ball or bowling perhaps claims one coterie, and at all times more daring individuals keep up perpetual motion in midair, so to speak, the sudden ascent of a maiden on a pole or unexpected descent on a rope being offset by more difficult aerial feats.
Following these exhilarating hours in the gymnasium, many seek the swimming pool, the expert not unusually going head first from the springboard or doing a few fancy turns on the performing rings along one side before the final plunge. That the scene of their aquatic sport is probably unequalled in splendor, though outclassed in size, may be understood by the statement that every inch of the tank and corridor with its massive pillars is of white marble. The side opposite the corridor is completely mirrored, doubling the enchanting picture, while the suffused glow from great globes of emerald, turquoise, and pink, suspended from above, finds wavering reflection in the blue-filtered water. Occasionally, a game of water polo invites a spirited contest, though members prefer to practice their special accomplishments, the modern mermaid who swims the length of the pool underwater being outdone only by the one who apparently sits down on the surface before turning a series of back somersaults. At one end of the pool is the visitors’ gallery of white marble, and here the late President McKinley watched these adept swimmers when the club tendered him an elaborate reception several years ago, and incidentally exhibited its unique advantages.
These morning amusements over, the fair athletes separate for more individual diversion. If one seeks repose, she hastens to the resting rooms on the second floor. Twenty-one rooms open out of a leisure-inviting quadrangle, the whole compartment being most charmingly done in sky blue and white. Though in the heart of the noisy metropolis, the walls are so deadened that outside sounds cannot penetrate, a warning placard of “silence” reduces necessary orders to attendants to whispers, and maids with soft tread bring soothing ointments, it may be, or a cheering cup of tea. Each little room is cozily furnished with a couch, enamel chairs, and a dressing table—all in immaculate white—and, as well as being a blessed refuge after gymnastic activity, it serves the same restful purpose for the downtown shopper at midday. If the member is unwearied, on the other hand, she refreshes herself in the dining room on the third floor, where, after several hours’ exercise, good digestion waits on an appetite that is not disappointed with the menu. Should she wish to be hostess for a luncheon party, one of the adjoining private rooms is at her disposal, with every provision for the perfect service which makes entertaining a pleasure. As the club is like unto the American man’s and the English women’s, it is interesting to note that, unlike these, the menu cards contain nothing stronger than Apollinaris water or ginger ale, only the ill member fortified with a physician’s prescription being permitted to be the exception, and then in the seclusion of her private room. At all times of day, moreover, other compartments offer beautifying allurements, from the white marble room for Russian as well as Turkish baths, to dainty nooks for facial massage, manicuring, and hairdressing.
Though the sterner sex are not associated with the club in an official or financial sense, they increasingly find social favor since the spacious dining room supplanted the more feminine tea room. In fact, an encouraging number are becoming habitués at the luncheon hour, each being sponsored by a member; while the elaborate monthly dinners inaugurated this season, with the room effectively arranged as a German garden, it may be, or an Egyptian banquet hall, and with the food of corresponding foreign flavor, afford excellent excuses for their entertainment. As the men regularly receive the women at their athletic retreat, a “mixed” club for physical culture suggests itself as a possibility some day, an interesting example being set, in the meantime, by the distinguished Bath Club of London, with its devotees of both sexes.
Extraordinary as is the Chicago Women’s Athletic Club, its promotion is due to one woman, Mrs. Paulina Harriette Lyon. When she privately suggested such a sumptuous center for physical culture, the society matrons, though interested in the idea, withheld support from the seemingly expensive experiment. Seeking to further the project, she issued invitations for a meeting at the Auditorium, and precisely thirteen women came to occupy the thousand chairs, one being Mrs. Philip D. Armour, whose name afterward added prestige to the presidency. Undaunted in purpose, this woman of charming personality collected the money necessary to equip the quarters; but, even after its monogrammed doors were opened and leading names were enrolled on the membership list, this “expensive experiment” at times survived only on borrowed breath, financially speaking. The result, however, justified the periodic struggle. Ultimately, the club was established on a sound basis, its resourceful manager (who comes from a family that does things—the late Dr. John Burroughs, president of the first Chicago University, being her uncle, and John Burroughs, the naturalist, her cousin) incidentally winning for herself the reputation of “promoter extraordinary.”
When the club opened its rented doors, Mrs. Lyon declared it should some day own a finer clubhouse. She applied for a ten-year life insurance policy for $300,000, and arranged with a Chicago banker to lend that amount with the policy as collateral, premiums to be paid from the club’s exchequer. With this sum as a stepping-stone, architect’s plans have been prepared for this twentieth-century palace of athletic sports, a $500,000 fifteen-story structure on the same $100,000 site. Something of its sumptuousness may be understood from the condensed description. The four upper floors, with three mezzanine sections exclusively reserved for the club, will include blossom-bound porches—veritable hanging gardens—where, overlooking the beautiful blue waters of Lake Michigan, refreshments may be served in the open in summer, and behind glass screens in winter. The fifty-foot swimming pool of marble and mosaic is to be placed under an arched roof of glass open to the sky; squash courts and solariums will be among the added delights; and suites for overnight occupancy of members will supply that convenience so devoutly wished by many. The reservation of the eight lower floors for commercial purposes savors of wise provision in more ways than one, particularly if they are occupied, as is hoped, by husbands of club members. These masculine money-makers will be called upon to pay increased assessments for their wives in the luxurious days of the future, for the cost of membership, already the largest of any American women’s club, will be increased to $150 initiation and $80 annually, to say nothing of proportionately high prices for meals and other services.
