Although sports historians have not often dealt with the athletic club movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s, much of the credit for the institutionalization of sport as a significant aspect of American culture should be attributed to these clubs. The athletic club movement began with the founding of the New York Athletic Club in 1866. By 1880 other clubs were well-established and the various clubs soon became more selective in terms of membership and more concerned with facilities in an attempt to become the leading athletic club. The 1890s, however, were noted for club bankruptcies and consolidations. The difficulties experienced by athletic clubs during this period were due basically to poor management and the overextension of financial resources to acquire property and expand facilities. Although the elite clubs which survived the 1890s continued to prosper in the early 1900s, this was a period in which neighborhood athletic clubs, occupational athletic clubs, and clubs organized by other small groups specifically for athletic competition fourished. The social strata represented in these clubs was increasingly lower middle class and working class, and the clubs were generally without facilities and the social preoccupations of the 1880s. (Included are data on membership requirements, dues, and athletic club policies.) (PB)