List of gentlemen's clubs in the United States

The following is a list of notable traditional gentlemen's clubs in the United States, including those that are now defunct.

Digby Baltzell, sociologist of the WASP establishment, explains in his book Philadelphia Gentlemen: The Making of a National Upper Class: The circulation of elites in America and the assimilation of new men of power and influence into the upper class takes place primarily through the medium of urban clubdom.

Frederick Lewis Allen showed how this process operated in the case of the nine “Lords of Creation” who were listed in the New York Social Register as of 1905: ‘The nine men who were listed [in the Social Register] were recorded as belonging to 9.4 clubs apiece,’ wrote Allen.

Morgan belonged to nineteen clubs in all; Vanderbilt, to fifteen; Harriman, to fourteen.’ Allen then goes on to show how the descendants of these financial giants were assimilated into the upper class: ‘By way of footnote, it may be added that although in that year [1905] only two of our ten financiers belonged to the Knickerbocker Club, in 1933 the grandsons of six of them did.

'[3]The traditional gentlemen's club originated in London (in particular the St James's area) in the 18th century as a successor to coffeehouses.