The Newport Reading Room (also known as The Reading Room), founded in 1854, is a gentlemen's club located on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island, USA. Its primary building features an actual book reading room. The Spouting Rock Beach Association, which owns the famed Bailey's Beach, has been reported to own the building.Time Article Recreation: Splendors at Home, July 2, 1965 However this claim, according to the club's leadership, is incorrect.
The club operates under laws for 501(c)(7) Social and Recreation Clubs; in 2024, it claimed total revenue of $1,252,125 and total assets of $2,848,887.
History The Newport Reading Room was founded in 1854 by William Shepard Wetmore, a wealthy China trade merchant, and several other notable Newporters, including Yankee traders and Southern planters who summered in Newport.Newport Reading Room: Sesquicentennial History, 2003 (Newport: NRR, 2003), pp. 12-27 Several of the managing stock holders were full-time Rhode Island residents while others were summer residents.Cleveland Armory, The last resorts (Greenwood Press, 1973)p. 247 Supposedly, the Newport Casino, a rival club nearby on Bellevue Avenue was started by a former Reading Room member, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., as described: The Newport Reading Room incident concerns Bennett and one of his polo buddies, Captain Candy, better known as "Sugar Candy." A wager was concocted whereby Sugar Candy would mount his polo pony and ride up the short flight of stairs into the exclusive club located on Bellevue Avenue. Bennett was reprimanded, Sugar Candy supposedly shown the door for the last time. As the story goes (never proven), Bennett started the Newport Casino in response.redwood library website link to story (accessed Oct. 8, 2009)Sports Illustrated, Sept. 2, 1968 (accessed Oct. 8, 2009) The Reading Room has a long history of hosting charitable fundraisers, for example the New York Times reported on the club's 1912 baseball game against the U.S. Navy officers of the Atlantic Fleet to raise funds for Newport Hospital.BASEBALL AT NEWPORT.; Naval Officers to Play Reading Room Team for Charity. The New York Times. August 14, 1913, Thursday Page 9 The Reading Room was one of the centers of Newport social life with other traditional institutions such as the Redwood Library, Newport Country Club, Trinity Church, Bailey's Beach, New York Yacht Club summer clubhouse and the Newport Casino."NEWPORT'S WINTER SOCIETY.; A RECEPTION AT THE READING ROOM -- PRIVATE ENTERTAINMENTS," New York Times, January 12, 1890, pg. 12
Notable Stockholder Members There are several categories of membership that include Stockholders, those who are eligible to vote; annual subscribers, resident and non-resident; and junior members.A complete list of all stockholder members for the first 150 years, from 1853 to 2003, is in Newport Reading Room: Sesquicentennial History, 2003 (Newport: NRR, 2003), pp. 181-197. Henry H. Anderson, Jr. Vincent Astor George F. Baker James Gordon Bennett, Jr. John Nicholas Brown Rear Admiral Henry E. Eccles Elbridge T. Gerry Robert Goelet Sr. John N. A. Griswold Theodore Havemeyer Vice Admiral John T. Hayward Thomas Wentworth Higginson Arthur Curtiss James George Noble Jones William Beach Lawrence Lewis Cass Ledyard Pierre Lorillard Charles May Oelrichs Duncan Pell Claiborne Pell Frederick H. Prince Cornelius Vanderbilt II Harold S. Vanderbilt William Shepard Wetmore Rear Admiral J.C. Wylie
See also List of American gentlemen's clubs Newport Casino Newport Country Club
References
External links https://www.golocalprov.com/news/An-Ugly-Anti-Semitic-Episode-in-Newport-When-a-Club-Wanted-Throw-Out-a-Jewi RI Supreme Court Case, In re Newport Reading Room et al., 21 RI 440 (1899)