Clubs: we all know them. We all love them. We were all greatly encouraged to join them freshman year. But are the clubs that we are familiar with today the same ones that thrived 50 years ago?
I’m sure that we all think of crossword club as a staple in the club scene here at Lincoln, but it hasn’t always been around.
You probably wouldn’t be surprised to know that gender essentialist clubs ruled for the majority of Lincoln’s history.
That’s right folks, Boy’s club and Girl’s club (or alternatively, Men’s club and Women’s club) were the favorite of the old Lincoln student body. Other clubs would come and go, but the Boy’s and Girl’s clubs remained stable all through Lincoln’s history.
When asked if she belonged to the Girl’s club, Verna Rossevelt, ’63 graduate, said, “Everybody did, all the girls belonged to Girl’s club… You were just supposed to belong to it.”
The same was true for Boy’s club.
But trust that, although the Boy’s and Girl’s clubs were the most popular, there were still many a club that went beyond typical expectations.
Sure, there was Gardening club and Chess Club; but there was also Ski Club, International Dance club, and Martial Arts Club.
My personal favorite has to be Image, a modeling club. Let me tell you, the members of Image were the most stylish Lincolnites there were. They would study modeling techniques and put on fashion shows.
Needless to say, I’m a fan.
There are a few
familiar faces in Lincoln’s old club scene. We still have most of the same affinity groups, such as Asian Student Union (or as it used to be called, Pacific Asian Student Association) and Black Student Union.
We also have a lot of the same language learning clubs, like French club and Chinese club. Sadly, Latin club has fallen out of favor with Lincoln students.
What can we learn from the clubs of Lincoln past? Is it that everyone has niche interests, including club leaders and members of Lincoln past? That’s probably the intellectual answer. However I think that the biggest takeaway is that we need to bring back Image asap.