ABSTRACT
Benjamin Franklin was the greatest association-founder in American history, and his adopted city of Philadelphia is marked by an infinite number and variety of voluntary associations, from the Masons, Mummers, Odd Fellows and Kiwanis to cricket clubs, country clubs, and men’s clubs. In Gentlemen in Crisis: The First Century of the Union League of Philadelphia, 1862-1962, Maxwell Whiteman, archival and historical consultant to the League, has given us an excellent and exhaustive study of the League’s first hundred years from its founding in 1862. Although many members were tempted to withdraw from political commitments and enjoy their club for its social fellowship alone, the League continued to play an important role in the Republican Party at both the national and state level. In the 1920s, during the last-gasp fling of old-stock America and its bastion, the Republican Party, the League became more aggressively Republican. It lost its former faith in the immigrant and stood out for the restriction of immigration.
