On February 3, 1903, in a small restaurant in San Francisco, our founders hosted the first meeting of The Commonwealth Club of California. Celebrate our 120 years of community fellowship and thought-provoking conversation with a little Club trivia, and wish The Commonwealth Club a happy birthday today with a gift of $120—one dollar for every year of our history.
120 Facts about The Commonwealth Club
Landmarks in Club History
1. The Commonwealth Club makes its debut in 1903, dedicating its work to promoting civic awareness and the common good
2. The Club grows, taking on the concerns of the times: child labor (1906); Native American rights (1909); air pollution (1913); banking laws (1908); juror selection (1920), and more
3. In 1932, The Commonwealth Club hosts one of Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” speeches
4. Home to the headquarters of the International Longshore Workers’ Union in 1934, the Club’s Embarcadero site becomes known for labor protests that eventually lead to advancements in worker rights
5. June 11, 1931: Club President James A. Johnston announces the creation of the California Book Awards—a program that now receives more than 400 submissions a year
6. Literary historians credit the Club’s Book Awards as among the first to recognize a young John Steinbeck, awarding him three Gold Medals between 1935 and 1939…and becoming embroiled in controversy for recommending The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck’s gritty epic of the Great Depression
7. Herbert Hoover gives four formal speeches on the record and nine “off-the-record” question-and-answer sessions at Club dinner meetings between 1936 and 1947
8. Civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King speaks at the Club in 1967
9. The Club hosts former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in 1967, and again in 1968
10. Women are finally permitted to join as Club members in 1971
11. First Lady Rosalynn Carter speaks twice at the Club in the 1970s and again in 2010
12. Actress/diplomat Shirley Temple Black is Club President in 1984
13. Actress Audrey Hepburn emerges from private life in 1988, travels the globe as a UNICEF ambassador and, in 1992, appears at the Club to speak about her experiences
14. In the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, Club events are hosted as luncheons at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel; live radio coverage keeps hosts and guests on their toes!
15. Until the 1980s, yearly Club membership rosters are printed, listing each member’s name, occupation, and city of residence
16. See into the past! View a 1928 motion picture (silent, 8:36) of Club founder Edward Adams among his prized flowers; Earl A. Walcott, “watch dog of expenditures,” at work; and the gentlemen of the Luncheon Committee here
Firsts and Foremosts
17. Dedicated to presenting points of view from across the political spectrum, The Commonwealth Club is the only place in the Bay Area where you can hear from a liberal one night and a conservative the next!
18. The Club’s Distinguished Citizen Award Gala begins in 1989, honoring more than 100 individuals to date
19. The Commonwealth Club’s California Book Awards honor writers for outstanding contributions to fiction, nonfiction, poetry, juvenile literature, first works of fiction, Californiana, and notable contributions to publishing; more than 500 authors have been recognized to date
20. The Club’s radio program—hosted by 230 stations in 27 states—is the oldest continuing radio broadcast in the country
21. 2001: Club podcasts begin way before podcasting is cool
22. 2007: The Club’s YouTube channel debuts, now with more than 85,000 subscribers
23. The Club’s first livestreamed program, which debuts in 2014, features Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian
24. April 2012: Rachel Maddow, host of MSNBC’s "The Rachel Maddow Show," introduces her book Drift at a sold-out Inforum program, the first presented by the Club at the Castro Theatre
25. The Club rings in 2019 with its first-ever New Year’s Eve party, and makes it to the Top 10 Best in San Francisco
26. One member (initials G.M.) has attended more in-person events than any other member!
27. Dr. Lauren Silver, the Club’s first-ever Education Director, comes onboard in December 2019 to develop positive civics content for the K–12 teaching community
28. Published continuously for more than 80 years, the Club’s award-winning magazine goes virtual: The Commonwealth Unbound features 116 pages filled with politics, arts, history, technology, and more; before the magazine, the Club published a newsletter
Club Programs: Inforum
29. Inforum debuts in 2000, offering a new way for young people to network after the burst of the dot.com bubble
30. October 2012: Women’s rights activist Cecile Richards receives Inforum’s 21st Century Visionary Award
31. More than 2400 tickets are sold on March 27, 2014, marking the Club’s best-attended program to date, when Inforum hosts Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington
32. Inforum is named San Francisco magazine’s 2015 “Best of SF Speaker Series”
33. Summer 2015: Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk helps check in attendees for his own Inforum program, and works alongside staff filling balloons with air and glowsticks
34. Inforum hosts singer/songwriter Matt Nathanson’s record-release party in 2018
35. Inforum ends every program with the question, “What is your 60-second idea to change the world?” Thousands of people have answered!
Club Programs: Climate One
36. Climate One is founded in 2007 following an eye-opening Commonwealth Club trip to the Russian Arctic
37. Arnold Schwarzenegger joins Climate One programs five times during his term as California governor, including during the 2009 Climate Summit in Copenhagen
38. Fall 2010: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sits down with Climate One hosts for a conversation about petro-politics and the Keystone Pipeline
39. In 2011, Dr. Richard Alley, Professor of Geosciences at Penn State University, receives the first Stephen H. Schneider Award, established by Climate One in honor of climate scientist Stephen H. Schneider
40. April 2017: To the delight of a packed Climate One crowd, Jane Goodall celebrates her 83rd birthday by demonstrating how a chimp might react to her four-tiered, chimpanzee-themed cake
41. Climate One founder and host Greg Dalton talks with artist/activist Ai Weiwei about the artist’s film, Human Flow (2017), a thought-provoking journey that examines how population movement affects climate change
42. Environmental activist Erin Brockovich is a fan of Climate One!
43. Climate One is nominated for a 2020 iHeartRadio Podcast Award in the category of Green Podcasts
44. Climate One inspires the next generation of climate leaders by establishing an annual scholarship to send two high school students to the Arctic as a summer learning experience
Club Programs: Travel
45. Founded on a tradition of cultural and intellectual exploration, Commonwealth Club Travel takes members to every continent across the globe, including Antarctica
46. Club travelers visit countries typically inaccessible to U.S. citizens, including North Korea, Iran, and Cuba
47. Club travelers are guided by professional tour directors who speak the local language; study directors help members explore history, culture, and more
48. Adventurous members enjoy hands-on cooking classes worldwide, including in Morocco, Spain, Italy, and Peru
49. 2008: Club travelers sail through China and East Asia with President George H.W. Bush
50. Over the past two years, more than 60 Club members have walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama
51. Find your soulmate! Numerous engagement proposals have taken place on Club trips (including in Antarctica and on the Nile River), and several Club travelers have meet their future spouses (including a match between a traveler and the trip study leader!)
52. Club travelers visit U.S. embassies around the world for briefings with our foreign service staff
53. Club members win free trips around the world at the Club’s annual Traveler Party
Club Programs: Guest Speakers
54. Over 119 years of events and presentations, The Commonwealth Club hosts 18 of the country’s 20 presidents: T. Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, F.D. Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, G.W. Bush, and Biden
55. The Club presents international leaders from around the world, from Nikita Khrushchev of the former Soviet Union and Vicente Fox Quesada, past President of Mexico, to Henry Puna, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands in the South Pacific
56. May 1992: We host Vice President Dan Quayle’s controversial Murphy Brown speech
57. December 2002: Mickey Hart, former drummer of the Grateful Dead, sets the beat with a smash-hit appearance at the Club
58. The Club sometimes features multiple family members, such as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and daughter Katie Albright, director of the San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center in March 2017, and Alice Waters and Fanny Singer in 2011
59. November 2016: Francis Ford Coppola confesses to Club guests that he’s sick of the musical theme to The Godfather
60. October 2017: The Club is filled with the melodious harmonies of music legend Art Garfunkle
61. Sports enthusiasts pay attention when forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu—the first to diagnose degenerative brain damage in athletes—warns of the dangers (“The Concussion Doctor,” 2017)
62. Popular programs for foodies include everything from “An Evening with Jacques Pepin” (2014) and “How Hippie Food Changed the Way We Eat” (2018), to “The Full Plate with Ayesha Curry” (2020) and “Cooking in Quarantine” (2020)
63. The Commonwealth Club screens Eleanor Coppola’s Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (1991); Bill Moyers’ Rikers: An American Jail (2017); and the Ken Burns’ PBS series College Behind Bars (2019), among others
64. November 2018: The Club presents an evening in Rock history, featuring live music by Ace of Cups, the pioneering all-female band that rocked San Francisco in the 1960s
65. The Club hosts California governors past and present—from Gray Davis, Jerry Brown, and Arnold Schwarzenegger to current Governor Gavin Newsom
66. A frequent speaker, former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown holds annual lectures on national and regional politics at the Club
67. The power of parody is the subject of talk-show host Andy Cohen (“Taboo Topics,” 2016), humorist P.J. O’Rourke (“Has America Gone Crazy?” 2017), and Stanford Professor Jennifer Aaker and lecturer Naomi Bagdonas (“Humor, Seriously,” 2021), who argue that humor can be a force for good in even the most serious of situations
68. Guest speaker Mai Khoi, an award-winning musician and activist sometimes known as “Vietnam’s Lady Gaga,” talks about efforts to promote freedom of artistic expression in Vietnam
69. March 2019: Golden Globe–winning actress Taraji P. Henson teams up with moderator Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, to shine a light on civil rights in Henson’s film The Best of Enemies
70. Foodies discover new taste sensations and learn tricks of the trade with chefs Tim Ferriss (2012), Mario Batali (2014), Joanne Weir (2015), Dominique Crenn (2020), Marcus Samuelsson (2021), and more
71. George Takei, former Star Trek cast member and political activist, introduces his 208-page manga memoir—from memories of his childhood in a Japanese-American internment camp to his years in Hollywood—at the Club in September 2019
72. November 2019: CEO Adam Mosseri makes headlines during a Club program when he announces Instagram’s intention to test hiding “like” metrics in an effort to make their site safer
73. After 28 years, Michael Krasny announces his retirement as host of KQED’s “Forum” broadcast, sharing parting words with Club members just a few days before his last show in February 2021
Behind the Scenes
74. Commonwealth Club members live in 40 states and countries, joining from as far away as England and Australia
75. Dr. Gloria Duffy, president and CEO of The Commonwealth Club since 1997, hosts some of the Club’s most prominent visitors and speakers; in 2019 she is selected by the San Francisco Business Times as the most admired nonprofit CEO in the Bay Area
76. Dignitaries from throughout the state, including the late Mayor Ed Lee, take part in the 2017 Grand Opening celebrations of our new home at 110 The Embarcadero in San Francisco
77. Four staff members began as Club interns; eight have worked at the Club for more than a decade, and two have been staff members for more than two decades
78. Six students from UC Berkeley serve as Programming Fellows each year
79. Almost one-third of our programs are Member-Led Forums, created by our dedicated volunteers
80. The stage background, originally painted white, is repainted black to give it more of a studio look
81. The Michelle Meow show, hosted weekly at the Club, brings programs of interest to our LGBTQ audiences
82. To date, 11 exhibits showcasing local artists have been displayed in our Farmer Gallery
83. The “Voices of Reform” Club initiative begins in 2007, spawning California Forward, an independent nonprofit dedicated to responsive state governance
84. Our own wine label now offers refreshing pinot noir and chardonnay
85. The Club’s rooftop deck at 110 The Embarcadero is THE BEST place to view the Bay Area skyline—for New Year’s Eve fireworks, our always-sold-out Blue Angels rooftop party, or your own celebrations and events
86. “Hearing Loop” technology installed in both Club auditoriums at 110 The Embarcadero electromagnetically transmits sound to hearing aids and cochlear implants, improving reception for hearing-impaired visitors
87. More than 1,100 distinguished Golden Gavel Members have maintained their Club memberships for 30 years or more!
88. November 2020 and spring 2021: The Commonwealth Club serves as an official polling place for elections
89. Club programs have been presented at venues all across the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Herbst Theatre, Marines’ Memorial, Castro Theatre, InterContinental Mark Hopkins Hotel, Santa Clara Convention Center, Oshman Family JCC, Lafayette Library, Mill Valley Community Center, Buck Institute, Marin Center Showcase Theater, and more
90. January 2021: Former Club Board of Governors member Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall is named the White House homeland security adviser to President Biden
Off the Beaten Path
91. Club founders briefly call the organization “The Agora,” from the ancient Greek for a place of public assembly
92. Over the years, Club programs are disrupted by everything from fire alarms (interrupting actress Carol Channing, former Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz, and infectious-disease specialist Dr. Anthony Fauci), earthquakes, power outages, unruly audiences—even a student-made hoverboard
93. On sensitive occasions, bomb-sniffing dogs surveil Club venues in advance of important government speakers
94. Chocolate chip cookies are the most commonly requested snack made by speakers in the green room
95. Staff working at an interim site during the construction of our Embarcadero building share office space with a handful of resident mice
96. The walls of the Taube Auditorium and Reception space are made from re-milled Douglas fir trees removed from the foundation during construction, and date back to the turn of the 20th century (amazingly, every once in a while, they still express sap)
97. A murder of crows has currently taken up residence in the trees behind The Commonwealth Club, making an infernal racket, but delighting inhouse birdwatchers
98. Our rooftop garden grows apples, kale, chard, herbs, and pomegranates
99. The insulation of our building is made almost entirely of denim from 7,800 pairs of jeans donated by Levi Strauss & Co.
100. A size-11 shoe dating back to the turn of the 20th century is found during foundation excavations at 110 The Embarcadero
101. Digitized audio recordings of Club presentations dating back to the 1940s (“The Austrian Situation,” 1947; “What Would World War III Be Like?” 1949; “I Was a Communist for the FBI,” 1951) are housed at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in Stanford, California
102. September 12, 2017: A San Francisco Symphony brass quintet plays “Fanfare for The Commonwealth Club,” a piece composed exclusively for the grand opening of the Club’s new building by Michael Smith, a San Francisco Conservatory of Music graduate student who won a competition held by Board of Governors member Dr. Carol Fleming
103. So far, two couples have taken their vows and hosted their wedding receptions at our Embarcadero building
104. To cut down on random clinks and clanks, Club staff ask program speakers to avoid dangly earrings when wearing microphones
105. San Francisco bids farewell to Beach Blanket Babylon with a celebration at The Commonwealth Club that features the show’s cast in full regalia—including iconic hats and headpieces that cannot fit inside until staff open the Club’s double doors
2020 and Beyond . . .
106. The Club hosts more than 800 online events since the pandemic lockdown, with more to come!
107. Speakers presented by the Club during the pandemic join us from around the world—Japan, India, the U.K., Hong Kong, the Philippines, Germany and more—as do audiences around the world
108. The last live, in-person program before San Francisco’s COVID-19 shelter-in-place order goes into effect is Rahm Emanuel, on March 5, 2020
109. The first online program of the pandemic period takes place on March 11, 2020, with White House Correspondent Kenneth Walsh presenting “Presidential Leadership in Crisis”
110. Our K–12 civics education programs kick off in May 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 quarantine, with “History in the Present: The Pandemic and Civic Learning”
111. The Club livestreams the June 2020 Global Pride commemoration, which reaches 57 million viewers around the world
112. June 2020: “Parenting in Support of Black Lives” is Inforum’s highest-attended online event of the year
113. “Youth Talks: Students Speak Up About Schools and COVID-19” is developed for students, by students, giving high-schoolers an opportunity to discuss their pandemic-era experiences and expectations
114. On November 16, 2020, Former Secretary of State George Shultz is featured online with Club members—one month before his 100th birthday
115. June 2020: Local artist Ian Ross paints the Club’s “Black Lives Matter” support mural on the front of the Club’s headquarters
116. With more than 1.1 million views, “The Trumps, The Kushners and American Greed,” with journalist Andrea Bernstein, is the most-watched online program of 2020
117. We begin encouraging students to ask questions of speakers, including political commentator Robert Reich; U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg; civil rights activist Alicia Garza; tech executive Shellye Archambeau; physician/UC administrator Dr. Michael Drake; and author/antiracist activist Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
118. More than 1,600 people (including one in Hong Kong!) tune in to our 2020 virtual gala, “Consider Yourself at Home with The Commonwealth Club”
119. January 2022: Acclaimed filmmaker Oliver Stone shows up unexpectedly at an onsite event—Michael Shellenberger’s, “San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities”—proving that the Club is a great place for making connections!
120. Our 2022 Creating Citizens program gifts graduating high school and college students a free one-year Club membership, honoring their achievements and helping them stay connected and informed.
