National Press Club

The Club shall provide people who gather and disseminate news a center for the advancement of their professional standards and skills, the promotion of free expression, mutual support and social fellowship.

The National Press Club has been a part of Washington life for nearly 100 years. Through its doors have come all of the Presidents of the United States since Theodore Roosevelt, as well as kings and queens, prime ministers, premiers, senators, congressmen, cabinet officials, ambassadors, scholars, entertainers, business leaders, and athletes. Its members have included all of the Presidents of the United States since Warren Harding and most have spoken from the Club's podium.

On March 12, 1908, thirty-two newspapermen met at the Washington Chamber of Commerce to discuss starting a club for journalists. At the meeting they agreed to meet again on March 29, 1908 in the F Street parlor of the Willard Hotel to frame a constitution for the National Press Club.

The Club founders laid down a credo which promised "to promote social enjoyment among the members, to cultivate literary taste, to encourage friendly intercourse among newspapermen and those with whom they were thrown in contact in the pursuit of their vocation, to aid members in distress and to foster the ethical standards of the profession."

With $300 in hand the founding members moved into its first club quarters on the second floor of 1205 F Street NW. By 1909 the Club had outgrown its new quarters and moved above Rhodes Tavern at the corner of 15th and F Streets. Once again the Club outgrew its residence causing a move to the Albee Building (neé Riggs) at 15th and G Streets.

In 1925, then Club president Henry L. Sweinhart, appointed a special building committee to plan for a permanent Club headquarters. A deal was negotiated with the Ebbitt Hotel which allowed the Ebbitt to move to the Albee building and allowing the National Press Club to demolish the hotel to build the National Press Building. The building included retail space and office space intended for Washington news bureaus with the Club occupying the 13th and 14th floors. In order to increase their funding, the National Press Club struck a deal with Fox to build a theatre as part of the building. The National Press Building opened its doors in August of 1927.

During the Great Depression, the building and the Club struggled financially. The Club, however, was on the way to being recognized as one of the world's premier journalistic organizations and managed to find additional funding from wealthy individuals. Regular weekly luncheons for speakers began in 1932 with an appearance by President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Since 1932 the Club has hosted an average of 70 luncheons each year which provides a national forum for Presidents, Prime Ministers, business and cultural leaders, members of the Cabinet and Congress. Over the years, the Club has hosted such newsmakers as Nikita Khrushchev, Madame Chiang Kai Shek, Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Charles deGaulle, Boris Yeltsin, Nelson Mandela, Yasser Arafat, and the Dalai Lama.

At its inception the National Press Club opened its doors only to white male journalists. In response to the National Press Club's closed door policy towards women the Women's National Press Club was formed in 1919. By the 1950s as the African-American community began its efforts for equal rights, the National Press Club voted to admit African-American journalists in 1955. Shortly after African-Americans were admitted as Club members, women journalists began to voice their opposition to their segregation. The battle grew more contentious as the years passed and by late 1970 members of the Women's National Press Club decided to push the issue by voting almost unanimously to admit men into their ranks in December of 1970. This vote helped to push a 227 to 56 vote to admit women in January of 1971.

Today membership in the club is open to all active journalists, former journalists, government information officers, and to those considered by journalists to be regular news sources.

Speaking at the National Press Club to mark his retirement, CBS commentator Eric Sevareid summed up what the National Press Club means to its members when he called it the "sanctum sanctorum of American journalists."

"It's the Westminster Hall, it's Delphi, it's Mecca," said Sevareid, "the Wailing Wall for everybody in this country having anything to do with the news business; the only hallowed place I know of that's absolutely bursting with irreverence."