Knickerbocker Centennial: An Informal History Of The Knickerbocker Club, 1871-1971

The Knickerbocker Club is a gentlemen’s club in New York City founded in 1871. It was founded by members of the Union Club of the City of New York who were concerned that the club’s admission standards had fallen. Members of the Knickerbocker Club are almost exclusively descendants of British and Dutch aristocratic families that governed the early 1600s American Colonies or that left the Old Continent for political reasons, or from current European aristocratic families. Towards the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, however, the club opened its doors to a few descendants of the Gilded Age’s prominent families, such as the Rockefeller or Stillman.