38 



Emerson in 1840. The purpose of founding it was to start 

 the Atlantic Monthly , and they did that, but after the 

 Atlantic was started, they decided it was so much fun that 

 they would keep on with it, and it became then just a 

 luncheon club. 



Sometime in the 1870s they conned a Forbes into 

 joining the club. The Forbeses are traditionally a very 

 rich family in Boston, and he endowed them with $15,000, an 

 endowment which has now grown, with typical Yankee thrift 

 and ingenuity, to about $135,000. So it's one of the few 

 places in the country where you can get a free lunch. 



Sharp: The Saturday Club, where is it located? 



Revelle: It's located just in people's heads, but they meet once a 



month at the Union League Club in Boston. The Dnion League 

 Club is itself an interesting Boston institution. The 

 famous club in Boston is the Somerset Club on Beacon Street. 



During the Civil War many of the members were 

 Copperheads, people who were very sympathetic with the South 

 and disliked "niggers". A Negro regiment was organized in 

 Boston. This Negro regiment marched down Beacon Street and 

 some of the members of the Somerset Club pulled down their 

 blinds so they wouldn't have to see it. Other members of 

 the Somerset Club took a dim view of this; they were 

 abolitionists. So they formed another club called the Union 

 League Club, which is about two blocks down the street from 

 the Somerset Club. 



Of course, one of the members of the Union League Club 

 was a local Adams, of the Adams family. They were always 

 very liberal. A present representative of the Adams family 

 is Thomas Boylston Adams. He is a good friend of mine and 

 he got me into the Saturday Club. 



This is a very distinguished group of people. John 

 Kenneth Galbraith, Samuel Elliot Morrison, Archibald Cox, 

 Charlie Wysanski, a lot of great Bostonians. They meet once 

 a month in the Union League Club and have good wine and a 

 good lunch, free. The club actually has a place of its own 

 is the Tavern Club, which is right down on Boylston Street, 

 the other side of the park or the Boston Commons from the 

 Somerset Club. It's full of professors, of course, 

 businessmen and lawyers, professional men in Boston. It's 

 not just an eating club, but they also give plays written by 

 the members and things like that. 



Sharp: All of that offers a kind of atmosphere and fellowship 

 that doesn't exist here, or if it exists it's in a very 

 different form. 



Revelle: It doesn't exist. Unfortunately. That's the most 

 disappointing thing I find on coming back here. 



We're trying to do something about it by organizing a 

 faculty club. I'm not even sure it's going to work, but at 

 least we're going to try. The great difficulty, is that 

 people are so concerned about their discipline, and so 



