© 2003, Rotary Club of Charleston

P.O. Box 21029
Charleston, SC 29413-1029

Club secretary:
Carroll Schweers
chasrot@comcast.net

Club survives hard times of the 1930s
Rotary Founder Harris visited club in 1939

From "Service Above Self: A History of the Rotary Club of Charleston -- 1920 - 2004," published Feb. 2005.

Read more. You can learn all about the Club's activities in the 1930s by downloading the full chapter.

The Rotary Club of Charleston entered its second decade on hard times. Due to the Great Depression, the cost of luncheons was reduced to 65 cents. The bank where the Club kept its money closed. Unemployed men on the road wandered into the city, which concerned Club members.

Membership

The number of members dropped to a low of 57, but thanks to a membership drive beginning in 1933, membership recovered and grew to 84 by 1940. By the end of the decade, the Club was meeting on the 12th floor of the Francis Marion Hotel, where members expressed appreciation for the view, as well as the cool breeze.

Projects and community service

Even though times were hard, the Club responded to the needs of the community and the state. Among projects backed by the Club during the 1930s were:

• Support to prevent closing of the Charleston Naval Shipyard;
  
• Extensions of Cannon Street and Murray Boulevard;
  
• Successful support for a yacht basin facility at the western end of Beaufain Street;
  
• Founding of the Rotary club in Beaufort;
  
• Joint efforts with Kiwanis, Lions, and Exchange clubs for legislation of workers' compensation laws to help attract industry into South Carolina;
  
• Cleanup of Marion Square; and
  
• Opposition to gambling in the city.

Notable speakers

The Club attracted many outstanding speakers during the decade, including Rotary International Founder Paul Harris; Amelia Earhart; nationally acclaimed newspaper editor William Allen White; the national commander of the Girl Scouts of America; Rotary International President John Nelson; a member of Admiral Richard Byrd's Expedition to the South Pole; and a physician who told the Club that Rotarians had too few children.

-- John Milkereit, contributing editor