The Whitechapel Club was started in 1889 by a small group of newspapermen in Chicago, Illinois.
Some of the well known members of the club included Brand Whitlock, George Ade, and Finley Peter Dunne.
[1] Walls were decorated with Indian blankets soaked with blood, nooses, knives that had been used to kill, and pictures of pirates who had been beheaded.
[2] Skulls, used to drink red fruit juice, lay everywhere,[3] and a full-size model of their "President," Jack the Ripper, was placed in a corner.
[2] Brand Whitlock, at the time the political correspondent for the Chicago Herald, remembered that a candidate was required to come to meetings five nights a week for a month while his name was pinned to a bulletin board; any member who disagreed with the potential membership could just take the name down.