Cosmos Club
| Cosmos Club | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| National Register of Historic Places | |||
 The Cosmos Club in February 2010 |
|||
|
|||
| location | 2121 Massachusetts Avenue , Washington, DC | ||
| Coordinates | 38 ° 54 '41 " N , 77 ° 2' 54" W | ||
| surface | 1,477 m² | ||
| Built | 1898 | ||
| architect | Carrère and Hastings | ||
| Architectural style | Beaux Arts architecture | ||
| NRHP number | 73002079 | ||
| The NRHP added | 3rd April 1973 | ||
The Cosmos Club is a private club based in Washington, DC in the United States . It was founded in 1878 by John Wesley Powell together with Clarence Edward Dutton , Henry Smith Pritchett , William Harkness and John Shaw Billings . One of its goals is "the further training of its members in science , literature and art ". Members of the Cosmos Club include numerous Nobel Prize , Pulitzer Prize and Presidential Medal of Freedom winners .
history
Members of the club originally met in the Corcoran building on 15th and F Street in the Northwest borough , but the meeting point was moved to President's Park in 1882 . There the members occupied the Tayloe and Cutts Madison houses on the east side of the park and tore down two terraced houses in between to have more space. In 1952 the federal government of the United States ordered the club to move, after which it moved to its current home in the Townsend family home at 2121 Massachusetts Avenue in the Dupont Circle neighborhood .
The building was constructed in 1898 in Beaux Arts architecture by the Carrère and Hastings company and completed in 1901. Mr. Townsend died just a year later , and after the death of Mrs. Townsend in 1931, their daughter Matilde and her husband Sumner Welles moved into the house where they lived until the start of World War II . The Cosmos Club bought the house in 1950. In 1973 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a Contributing Property of the Dupont Circle Historic District and the Massachusetts Avenue Historic District .
Since 1887, the Philosophical Society of Washington has met in the meeting hall of the Cosmos Club , now known as the John Wesley Powell Auditorium. In 1888, the National Geographic Society was established in the Cosmos Club , as was the Wilderness Society in 1935.
For the first 110 years of its existence, the club only allowed men to be members. Women invited as guests were also forbidden to enter the club through the main entrance or rooms of the house reserved for members. In 1988, the Washington Committee on Human Rights ruled that the club's misogynistic policy violated the city's anti-discrimination principles. Since then the club has also been open to women.
In 1990 the first issue of Cosmos: A Journal of Emerging Issues , which initially appeared annually but has been published irregularly since 2004, was published in which the members of the club publish essays .
Awards
Members of the club can be honored with two different awards.
Cosmos Club Award
The Cosmos Club Award has been presented annually by the Cosmos Club Foundation since 1964 to personalities of national and international importance in a previously undefined area of science, literature or art, in a teaching profession or in the public service . Well-known winners of this award include Edwin Land , Paul Volcker , Charles Everett Koop , James Van Allen , Arthur Kornberg , Sandra Day O'Connor , Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Elie Wiesel . In 2012 Philippe de Montebello was honored accordingly.
John P. McGovern Award
This prize has been awarded since 1986 and is named after its founder, John P. McGovern . The personalities honored with this award hold publicly accessible lectures in the rooms of the club on their respective fields. The most famous sponsors include J. Craig Venter , Mstislav Rostropovich , Stephen J. Gould , Edward O. Wilson , Saul Bellow , Derek Jacobi, and Leonard Slatkin .
Individual evidence
- ^ Cosmos Club, Washington, DC. General Services Administration , accessed December 12, 2012 .
- ^ The Townsend Mansion. Cosmos Club, accessed December 12, 2012 .
- ↑ Laurie Ossman, Heather P. Ewing, Steven Brooke: Carrère & Hastings . the masterworks. Rizzoli, New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-8478-3564-5 .
- ↑ Matt Schudel: Lester Tanzer; Editor at US News & World Report. In: Washington Post . December 12, 2004, accessed December 12, 2012 .
- ↑ Cosmos Journal. Cosmos Club, accessed December 12, 2012 .
- ^ The Cosmos Club Award. Cosmos Club Foundation, accessed December 12, 2012 .
- ^ The John P. McGovern Award. Cosmos Club Foundation, accessed December 12, 2012 .
literature
- Thomas M. Spaulding: The Cosmos Club on Lafayette Square . The Cosmos Club, Washington, DC 1949.
- George Crossette: Founders of The Cosmos Club of Washington, 1878 . The Cosmos Club, Washington, DC 1966.
- Wilcomb E. Washburn: The Cosmos Club of Washington: a centennial history, 1878–1978 . The Cosmos Club, Washington, DC 1978.
