Mark
There are 2 books on the history of private clubs in America. From amazon.com reviews:
1.Golf and The American Country Club by Richard J. Moss
Editorial Reviews
Product Description:
In this entertaining cultural history, Richard J. Moss explores the circumstances that led to the firm establishment of the country club as an American social institution and its inextricable connection to the ancient, imported game of golf.
The founders of the early country clubs sought to counter the nationalization and standardization of American life by creating closed, controlled communities that reminded them of the village America being snuffed out by industrialization. Initially little more than informal groups of friends playing golf in pastures and orchards, country clubs were soon draped in "instant" history and prestige and their members distinguished by uniform dress. By 1901, the country clubs that had sprouted all over the country had undergone another change, becoming "country estates" in the suburbs where the prosperous registered their social status.
The transformation of the club from country retreat to suburban playground went hand in hand with a widespread shift in attitudes toward health and sport. Golf was perceived as a democratic game, one that was physically sedate enough to accommodate players of both genders and all ages and that employed a handicap system to level the playing field. Other factors spurred the growth and expansion of country clubs in the 1920s: the advent of professional golf architects, the rise of public golf courses, increased discretionary time and income for many Americans, and a shift away from the Protestant ethic of deferred gratification toward values that justified increased leisure and pleasure.
The Depression brought this expansion to a screeching halt. After World War II the business of golf changed, with public and private daily-fee courses, corporate country clubs, and gated golfing communities, as on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, presenting steep competition for the private clubs. Moreover, the clubs confronted demands for equal access by minorities and women.
Pairing a conversational tone with rock-solid scholarship, Golf and the American Country Club offers a readable and even-handed treatment of a venerable and controversial American institution.
2. The American Country Club: Its Origins and Development by James M. Mayo
From Publishers Weekly
The words "country club" are almost always accompanied by the word "exclusive" and images of cultural islands of economic power, social status and minority discrimination. Here, Mayo, professor in the School of Architecture and Urban Design at the Univ. of Kansas and author of The American Grocery Store, traces their history from the dining clubs of the early 1800s, through the city clubs, and then the blossoming of country clubs in the first decades of the 20th century. The rise of the American country club coincided with suburbanization, new methods of transportation and the desire of the elite to separate themselves from the lower classes. But Mayo goes beyond social and economic history. For example, he includes philosophical debates about the country club as an exemplar of republican (little r) values: one magazine writer went so far as to say "[t]he country club seems almost destined to satisfy the somewhat communistic dream" of such utopian experiments as Brook Farm. The role of sports, of women, of the Great Depression, of WWII and of the rebellious 1960s are all reflected in the changing face of the country club and are all adeptly and readably charted by Mayo. Last but not least, this is also a fascinating study of the growth of an American business?how problems of transportation, location, rules, management, activities, design and maintenance led to new solutions and new problems. Mayo turns one pocket of American history inside out to show how the country club reflects not just wealth, but America's political landscape.