Chicago Clubs
Chicago is another of those cities which has abounded with clubs over the years, many with confusingly similar names.
University of Chicago Science Fiction Club[edit]
fl. 1950-1960s
A club at the University of Chicago founded in 1950 by Tom Seidman, George D'Asaro, and John Boardman. It published The Journal of Science Fiction and was part of CHIAC.
In its early years, club meetings were so informal as to be pretty chaotic -- though they weren't dull. Its 1952 Halloween party included an imitation black mass, which gained it unwelcome notice by the university's President. Earl Kemp became club President in 1953. Its faculty adviser was Nobel-Prize-winning chemist Harold Urey!
In 1963, the club split into two groups. By this time, none of the members were students at the University of Chicago, and many felt that the club had become stale. George Price, who had been doing the club's program and sending out meeting notices wanted a more sf-oriented group and began hosting a monthly meeting. Rosemary Hickey helped set up a monthly social group (including drinking) called the Chicago SF League.
A new UofC club was founded in the ’60s as the University of Chicago SF Society. It was started in April 1968 with Jerry Lapidus, Michael Jensen, Linda Kravinski and Charles Fuhrer as officers. By 1969, it was meeting in Ida Noyes Hall on campus. This club made a short-lived and unsuccessful bid for the 1973 Worldcon. See Chicago in '73.
Chicago Science Fiction Society[edit]
aka
Chicon II Society[edit]
fl. 1950-53
This is the organization which ran Chicon II, which see.
