The Unlikely Democracy of Old Seattle's Social Clubs
While business leaders built the city’s economy, a fragile web of tennis courts, chess clubs, and elite cotillion circles defined its social fabric in 1891.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The social features of Seattle are very agreeable, and the conventionalities are courteously observed to an extent very unusual in a community so deeply absorbed in business. The most liberal encouragement is given to every form of social recreation, and the pleasant hospitalities of private life are freely extended to all who entitle themselves to the privilege. In so new a gathering of people from all parts of the country, there might be expected a little more reserve than in cities where families have been acquainted by long association; and the more conservative circles undoubtedly maintain that exclusiveness. It is not preserved upon arbitrary rules, however, and by the natural law of affiliation and the artificial rule which governs all well-regulated communities, the doors of every house are opened to those who have the right to enter. Society in Seattle is very democratic and the mere possession of wealth does not insure an entrance, nor does the want of it form a barrier. Some of the most charming circles of acquaintances are among those in very moderate circumstances. The spirit of clannishness extends a cordiality through all ranks, and there is a Buckeye club, a Badger union, a Sucker society and other formal or informal gatherings of men from the same state, besides fraternal orders. A very select association has been formed under the name of the Cotillion Club. It does not affect to, but by tacit consent it has become the committee on social credentials, and it is a distinction to be invited to its germans.
“Society in Seattle is very democratic and the mere possession of wealth does not insure an entrance, nor does the want of it form a barrier.”
In 1891, Seattle was a boomtown trying to curate a 'respectable' social identity despite its rough-and-tumble roots. Today, while the city's 'clannishness' is often criticized as the 'Seattle Freeze,' the desire to build status and community through clubs and networks remains a defining, if sometimes exclusionary, feature of local life.
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