What is The Examiner Club?
Founded by Joseph Henry Allen
The Examiner Club grew out of a group that promoted and edited a Unitarian publication called the Christian Examiner, which was published from 1824 to 1869. In 1863, Thomas Bayley Fox and Joseph Henry Allen took charge of the publication and changed the name of the group to the Examiner Club. For more information, see the talk by founder Joseph Henry Allen.
The Examiner Club is not a current affairs discussion group, The American Philosophical Society, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, or The Club of Odd Volumes. It is a society of educated and informed people from numerous fields who meet to spread the wealth around -- to argue, but also to listen; to inform but not to browbeat, to instigate and inspire but not to mystify or specialize.
This club ought to make us all think more clearly on subjects which few of us have had the time to examine for ourselves. I would like to see us as diverse as possible within the boundaries of civility, as exploratory as possible within the limits of comprehension. Those of us who are teachers should be able to teach those of us who are learners.
— Peter Davison, President, 1991