Club Sociability in Colonial America: From British Tradition to American Experience, 1720-76

This book examines the cultural transfer of the British club model to the English-speaking colonies of North America. The gentlemen's club, which flourished in eighteenth-century Britain, became a highly exportable institution throughout the Empire. This study shows that this unique model of sociability played a central part both in transmitting British values and in shaping a new colonial identity. It argues that the success of clubs in British America depended on the emergence of favourable cultural, economic and political factors, on the agency of some decisive social actors such as Benjamin Franklin and Dr. Alexander Hamilton, and on the creation of networks of influence and power, therefore shedding new light on the circulation of individuals, ideas and practices in the colonies from 1720 to the eve of the American Revolution.