page_title: Union League Club
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Union League Club / History
caption_attribution_description: Presentation of Colors, 1864 The 20th Regiment United States colored troops formed line at the foot of Twenty Six Street, East River, and marched to Union square. Arriving in front of the Union League Club House at one o'clock. A vast crowd of citizens filled the square, and every door, window, verandah, tree, and house-top that commanded a view of the scene was peopled with spectators. Over the entrance of the Club-house was a large platform ornamented with flags and filled with ladies. In the street was another platform tastefully decorated and occupied by prominent citizens. From the stand the colors were presented by President King of Columbia College. This is a retouched picture, which means that it has been digitally altered from its original version. Modifications: Color adjusted. Looking around the internet, the only copies of this painting I could find appeared to be derived from this one, a quite yellowed copy. As other paintings by this author are fairly normally colored, I believe the yellow cast is not part of the original painting. This edit color adjusts the painting to more natural colors. Use with discretion.. The original can be viewed here: Henry-Presentation of Colors.JPG. Modifications made by Jbarta.
context_page_description: The Union League Club is a private social club in New York City that was founded in 1863. Its fourth and current clubhouse is located at 38 East 37th Street on the corner of Park Avenue, in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan. It was designed by Benjamin Wistar Morris and opened on February 2, 1931. The building was designated a New York City landmark on October 25, 2011. The club is considered one of the most prestigious in New York City.
  Union League clubs, which are legally separate but share similar histories and maintain reciprocal links with one another, are also located in Chicago and Philadelphia. Additional Union League clubs were formerly located in Brooklyn, New York and New Haven.
context_section_description: The club dates its founding from February 6, 1863, during the Civil War.  Tensions were running high in New York City at the time, because much of the city's governing class, as well as its large Irish immigrant population, bitterly opposed the war and were eager to reach some kind of accommodation with the Confederate States of America.  Thus, pro-Union men chose to form their own club, with the twin goals of cultivating "a profound national devotion" and to "strengthen a love and respect for the Union."
  The Union League (also known as Loyal Leagues) was actually a political movement before it became a social organization. Its members raised money both to support the United States Sanitary Commission, the forerunner of the American Red Cross, which cared for the Union wounded following battles, and the Union cause generally. 
  The New York League was founded by four prominent professionals and intellectuals: Henry Whitney Bellows, Frederick Law Olmsted, George Templeton Strong, and Oliver Wolcott Gibbs. The men, all members of the United States Sanitary Commission, desired to strengthen the nation state and the national identity. They first aimed to recruit a coalition of moneyed professionals like themselves. Strong believed that the club would only thrive with a respectable catalogue of moneyed men. Olmsted especially desired to recruit the new generation of young, wealthy men, so that the club might teach them the obligations and duties of the upper class.
  The founders aimed to win the political governing elite over to support of the Union and abolition. They also believed that a centralized government was essential to their prosperity. The national government enforced contracts, tariffs, and an expanding infrastructure, all in the best interest of the professionals in the merchant, financial, and manufacturing classes, which in turn, benefited the population at large. These professionals also Developed an economic interest in the federal government,  because as the war progressed, Union League ideas had their effect and New York City's elite bore a disproportional amount of the nation's debt. As they bought more and more war bonds, the holders had an increasing economic interest in the success of the Union, in addition to the convictions that led them to buy the bonds in the first place.
  The club held its first official meeting on March 20, 1863. At this first meeting, Robert B. Minturn, head of the nation's second largest shipping firm, was elected president. Some of the elected vice presidents included William H. Aspinwall, Moses Taylor, and Alexander T. Stewart.
  It did not take long for the club's enemies to make their displeasure felt with the new organization. On July 13, 1863, just five months after the club's foundation and only days after receiving word of the twin Union victories at Gettysburg and at Vicksburg, the New York Draft Riots exploded right in the club's backyard. The Union League Club was high on the vandals' list of targets (right after the Colored Orphan Asylum), but some brave members kept them at bay by maintaining an armed vigil in the locked and barricaded clubhouse on East 17th Street, just off Union Square Park.
  A few months later, the members decided to make an unmistakable gesture that they had not been intimidated. The club decided to recruit, train and equip a Colored infantry regiment for Union service. The 20th U.S. Colored Infantry was formed on Riker's Island in February 1864. The next month, it marched from the Union League Club, down Canal Street and over to the Hudson River piers to embark for duty in Louisiana. In spite of numerous threats, the members of the Union League Club marched with the men of the 20th, and saw them off. During World War I, the club sponsored the 369th Infantry, the famed Harlem Hellfighters, which was commanded by William Hayward, a club member.
  During Reconstruction, Union Leagues were formed all across the South. They mobilized freedmen to register to vote. They discussed political issues, promoted civic projects, and mobilized workers opposed to segr
caption: Edward Lamson Henry's Presentation of Colors, 1864, depicts the outfitting of two African-American regiments at the Union League Club of New York's first clubhouse on 17th Street, facing Union Square
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