History of The Explorers Club

The year was 1904. The spirit of exploration was running high. Theodore Roosevelt, America’s premier adventurer President, was still in the White House. The Wright Brothers’ flying machine was barely off the ground; air travel was years away from reducing the globe to an accessible sphere. A few explorers determined to reach the North Pole had captured the imagination of the Western world. Many geographic regions remained undiscovered. Spurred by the challenges of reaching the unreachable and the scientific desire to pry from the earth its long-held secrets, a hardy band of gentleman-adventurers came together to form The Explorers Club in New York City.

The idea began with Henry Collins Walsh, an author and war correspondent who had sailed with Frederick A. Cook’s 1894 Arctic expedition aboard the ill-fated SS Miranda. On their return to New York, Walsh and his fellow survivors, eager to “keep green their friendship,” organized the Arctic Club, which came to embrace nearly every prominent polar explorer in the United States and abroad. So successful was it that a core of its members, together with friends who had explored in other regions, decided to found the more inclusive Explorers Club. The charter members were a diverse group representing a myriad of interests and walks of life. Their stated mission: “promote exploration by all possible means.”

Incorporated in 1905, The Explorers Club in its earliest years met in simple rented rooms. Its first four presidents were famed Arctic explorers Adolphus W. Greely, Cook, Robert E. Peary and David L. Brainard. Under Brainard in 1912, the Club found a permanent home in a loft on Amsterdam Avenue. There, members began holding regular meetings and gala dinners and assembling the books, maps, trophies and memorabilia that would grow into a remarkable library and museum of exploration and travel. Returning explorers and visiting scientists were invited to share their experiences in public and member lectures. By the 1920s, the Club was aiding serious exploration and field science.

In 1965, the Club purchased a Tudor-style mansion on East 70th Street, in the historic Upper East Side. With its twin-arched façade of brick and limestone, leaded glass windows and carved oak interiors, the Lowell Thomas building, named for the noted explorer and broadcaster, has become the physical symbol of the Club’s high purposes, embodying the history of exploration and the passionate quest for new knowledge.

Frey, Joseph, “Putting The World On The Map”, Outpost: Canada’s Travel Magazine, March/April 2003
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Explorer's Club Charter

Since 1904, our international, professional society has been a meeting point and unifying force for explorers and scientists worldwide. The Explorers Club is dedicated to the advancement of field research, scientific exploration, and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore. We foster these goals by providing expedition planning assistance, research grants, educational lectures and publications, and exciting adventure travel programs.

Explorers Club Charter (PDF file)