Staff Organizations. University Of Maine Spectator Club Records

The Spectator Club was organized on March 31, 1911 in Orono, Maine, to provide a club for a few younger members of the University of Maine faculty to engage in intellectual discussion. L.E. (Elmer) Woodman, Professor of Physics, is credited with the idea forming the group. Charter members included professors Everett Davee, Archer Grover, Walter Curtis, and Lowell J. Reed. Inspired partly by similar area women's groups and another local organization, the Conversation Club (organized in Orono, April 6, 1897), the plan for the Spectator Club was for each member to take turns hosting, selecting, researching, and speaking on a topic of personal interest. Each presentation was followed by group discussion. A history of the club compiled by James A. Gannett in 1949 mentions that the name of the club seems to have been inspired by an English daily publication called The Spectator, founded by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele and distributed in England from 1711-1712. The publication was aimed at an emerging middle class and attempted to bring philosophy out of colleges and libraries to become more accessible in clubs, assemblies, tea-tables and coffee houses. Spectator Club members spoke on a wide variety of topics of personal interest related to local, university, and national events, including travel, history, hobbies, books, and innovation in various fields.