First fifty
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First fifty
THE LIST BY NAME
THE LIST BY NUMBER
THE FIRST CLUB
CENTENNIAL BELL
ANNIVERSARIES
CLUB POPULATIONS
CLUB TIMELINE
FIRST 100 ARCHIVES
FIRST 101 - 105
LANDMARK CLUBS
Populations of Communities in early clubs
This is the page where our research project began. On Wednesday 11 October 2000, Jack M. B. Selway,
then a member of Rotary Club of Pueblo, CO #43, received a list of the first 50 Rotary clubs.
This list was faxed to Founder by RI staff member, Joaquin Mejia.
It was the only list which could be found and was from an old fashioned typewriter.
Within a few days Selway had created a page for each club telling where they were located,
when they met, maybe something about their communities.
Then Founder Selway had the thought that perhaps their histories might be of some interest...
From then on, volunteer Rotarians around the world worked on hundreds of projects:

Stories about all the presidents, first clubs of every country, early clubs of every continent,
the philosophy of Rotary, the story of Women and Rotary and the list goes on.
Here you can learn about the first nine years. From 1905 until 1914 --
100 Rotary clubs joined together to form this marvelous organization.
By studying these clubs, you'll find common goals, lasting values,
traditions, abilities to adapt and great Rotarians.

What is remarkable is that these 100 clubs are "the" original "First 100 Clubs" of Rotary.
Not one of them failed. They are in five countries. They've weathered two world wars.
Some had war in their streets and there were awful financial times. They are still here.
Enjoy meeting them as we continue to discover them ourselves.

One of the objectives Rotary Global History was to cover the history of Rotary's early years.
We chose the "First 100 Clubs" and were authorized to use www.rotaryfirst100.org, as a number
during the centennial of Rotary International. For reasons satisfied by the Four Way Test,
we added five clubs, all of which could have been number one-hundred.
We also added eight clubs mentioned in the "1905 - 1948" appendix found
in the first edition of "My Road to Rotary" by Paul P. Harris and published
by A. Kroch and Son. The result is a study of one-hundred and thirteen
clubs which cover the entire Rotary life of Rotary's founder Paul Harris.

Historians, around the world, continue to maintain and improve this archive of Rotary's history.
RotaryFirst100 - Rotary's First 100 Years and more...

A doctoral thesis, detailed history of Rotary and civic internationalism
Within a few weeks of our founding the project became "Rotary First Fifty" with the authorized domain of www.rotaryfirstfifty.org
still used to reach this page.


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*Based on paid members, subscribers, Facebook friends, Twitter followers, mobile app users, History Library users, web pages, and articles about Rotary's Global History

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