You are here: Rotary » The History of Rotary

The Beginning and Growth of Rotary

Paul Harris

The Rotary Club was founded by Paul Harris, a 37 year old attorney practicing in Chicago, Illinois, who wanted to recapture the friendly spirit he had experienced in his youth, living in small town Vermont. Industrialisation of the cities encouraged many young men to migrate to Chicago from small towns and villages as Harris had done in 1896 to practice law. Seeking fellowship, Harris considered the formation of a club, bringing together businessmen and professionals from differing occupations for the purpose of developing acquaintances and forming friendships.

The first meeting

On 23rd February 1905 in room 711 of the Unity Building in downtown Chicago, Attorney Paul Harris and three friends, Silvester Schiele (coal dealer), Gustavus Loehr (mining engineer) and Hiram Shorey (merchant tailor) discussed Paul Harris's idea for a business and professional fellowship club. The club would limit its membership to one member from each business or profession and meet weekly. This meeting is regarded as the first Rotary club meeting, although at this time, the club had no name.

Growth of the Chicago Rotary Club

The second meeting was held on March 9th when Harry Ruggles (printer), William Jensen, and A. L. White joined the existing four members.

It was during the meetings that followed that members decided to rotate the location of meetings between individual's offices, leading to the adoption of the name Rotary Club and Harry Ruggles created the first version of the Rotary "wheel" emblem.

Word of the new Chicago Rotary Club spread and other businessmen were invited to join. By the end of 1905, the Chicago Rotary Club had a membership of 30, with Silvester Schiele as president and Harry Ruggles as treasurer. It was two years after formation of the club that Paul Harris served as president. As club membership grew, meetings moved from member's offices to hotels and restaurants.

Service Above Self - The first service project

In 1907, club membership had risen to 87, and following the philosophy of "Service Above Self", the club conducted its initial service project, the building of Chicago's first public lavatory. Realising that fellowship and development of business acquaintances was not sufficient motivation to sustain weekly meetings, service projects provided a new focus for the club and Rotary became the world's first service-club organization.

In 1908, the second Rotary Club formed in San Francisco, and in 1909, clubs formed in Oakland California, Seattle and Los Angeles. At this time, the Chicago club membership had risen to 300.

The National Association of Rotary Clubs

The National Association of Rotary Clubs was formed in 1910, by which time 16 clubs were in existence. The Rotary Club of Winnipeg, Canada, held its first meeting on 3rd November 1910 and charted in 1912. This was the first international club to form, and in 1912 the National Association of Rotary Clubs changed its name to the International Association of Rotary Clubs. Between 1912 and 1914, clubs continued to form in the U.S. and Canada, and in 1912, the first U.K. club formed in London. Clubs formed in Glasgow, Belfast and Dublin and the Rotary Club of Phoenix, Arizona is credited with being the 100th club to form. Rotary grow during the First World War, and in 1918, 400 clubs had formed and membership had reached 40,000 members worldwide.

Paul Harris was the first president of the National Association of Rotary Clubs, serving two terms. Harris suffered a near fatal heart attack in his final year as president and required a full year to recover. Over the next 35 years, he and his wife Jean Thomson Harris made numerous exhausting trips to nearly every continent, visiting hundreds of cities, planting friendship trees and attending Rotary conferences. When on 27th January 1947, Paul Harris passed away, Rotary had growing from one club with four founder members into an international service organisation with 6,000 clubs across 75 countries, and 300,000 members, carrying out service projects for the good of humanity.

Rotary membership has been open to women since 1987, and as of 2009 the Rotary organisation consists of 33,000 clubs across 200 countries and geographical areas with 1.2 million members.

Credit for the above material is given to Rotary Global History Fellowship