page_title: Eating clubs at Princeton University
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Eating clubs at Princeton University / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Tiger Inn operated as Eating Club at Princeton University 1890–present. 48 Prospect Ave This building built 1895. Princeton, New Jersey.
context_page_description: The eating clubs at Princeton University are private institutions resembling both dining halls and social houses, where the majority of Princeton upperclassmen eat their meals. Each eating club occupies a large mansion on Prospect Avenue, one of the main roads that runs through the Princeton campus, with the exception of Terrace Club which is just around the corner on Washington Road. This area is known to students colloquially as "The Street". Princeton's eating clubs are the primary setting in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1920 debut novel, This Side of Paradise, and the clubs appeared prominently in the 2004 novel The Rule of Four.
  Princeton undergraduates have their choice of eleven eating clubs. Seven clubs—Cannon Club, Cap and Gown Club, Princeton Tower Club, The Ivy Club, Charter Club, Tiger Inn and University Cottage Club—choose their members through a selective process called "bicker", involving an interview process, though the actual deliberations are secret. Four clubs— Cloister Inn, Colonial Club, Quadrangle Club, and Terrace Club—are non-selective "sign-in" clubs, with members chosen through a lottery process.
context_section_description: Fraternities and secret societies were banned from Princeton from the middle of the 19th century until the 1980s, with the exception of the university's political, literary, and debating societies, the American Whig Society ("Whig") and the Cliosophic Society ("Clio"), which had been founded at Princeton before the American Revolution.
  Eating clubs arose from dining societies, in which Princeton students gathered to take meals at a common table. These groups, often whimsically named, rarely lasted longer than a few years, disappearing when their founders graduated.
  Towards the end of the 19th century the eating clubs began to recruit new members as old ones left and also began to lease or buy permanent facilities. Ivy Club was the first of the permanent eating clubs.  It was followed shortly after by University Cottage Club. This process was greatly aided by Moses Taylor Pyne, who provided financial assistance to most of the eating clubs. An early member of Ivy Club, Pyne was heavily involved in the early development of Cap and Gown Club, Campus Club, Elm Club, Cloister Inn, and many others.  The new clubs (along with other new extracurricular activities) gradually eroded the central role that debate societies Whig and Clio played in undergraduate student life. The decline in popularity and energy of the societies led to their merger into the American Whig-Cliosophic Society, which still exists today.
  Twenty eating clubs have existed since Ivy Club opened in 1879, though never more than 18 at any one time. At various points, many of the eating clubs fell on hard times and closed their doors or merged with others.  The now-defunct eating clubs include Campus Club, Key and Seal Club, Arch Club, Gateway Club, Court Club, Arbor Inn, and Prospect Club. Dial, Elm, and Cannon Clubs merged to form DEC Club, which operated from 1990 to 1998. The most recent club to close was Campus Club, which shut down in 2005.
  The eating clubs and their members have figured prominently among Princeton alumni active in careers in literature and the performing arts. For example, the distinguished Pulitzer Prize writer Booth Tarkington, who transformed the Drama Association into the Princeton Triangle Club was a prominent member of Ivy Club. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a member of the University Cottage Club. The actors Jimmy Stewart and David Duchovny were members of the Charter Club, and the actors Dean Cain and Brooke Shields were members of Cap and Gown.
  Eating clubs have sometimes closed and returned to active life. The Cloister Club was reopened in the 1970s and continues successfully. Some closed eating clubs have been purchased by the university for use as academic and administrative buildings. Dial Lodge is now the Bendheim Center for Finance; Elm Club temporarily housed the Classics Department and European Cultural Studies Program and is the new home of the Carl A. Fields Center for Equality and Cultural Understanding. The donation of Campus Club to the University for use as a space for social events was completed in 2006. Cannon Club was briefly converted into Notestein Hall, an office for the University Writing Center, but has since been repurchased by alumni. The club was reopened as Cannon Dial Elm Club in fall 2011.
  In 1979, undergraduate Sally Frank filed suit against then all-male clubs Ivy Club, Cottage Club, and Tiger Inn for gender discrimination. While Cottage chose to coeducate during the intervening years, Ivy Club and Tiger Inn were forced to become co-ed organizations in 1991, 22 years after Princeton first admitted female students, after their appeal to the Supreme Court regarding Frank's lawsuit was denied.
  The eating clubs have attracted controversy, being viewed as outdated, elitist institutions. (Woodrow Wilson was, in part, driven from Princeton by alumni and administrators because he loathed the effect the clubs had on academic and social life.) A major part of the controversy was the difference in cost between joining an eating club and buying a university dining plan. By 2006, the difference was over $2,000 for most c
caption: Tiger Inn
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