Los Angeles Clubs

When you think of clubs in LA, you think of LASFS, the first club in LA and one which is still active. But there were others -- many others.

LASFS

LASFS (which was also the LA chapter of the Science Fiction League) rates its own page.

Early Clubs

World Girdlers' International Science League Correspondence Club

fl. 1937
The WGCC was a club which existed (briefly) around 1937. It was the brainchild of Vernon Harry in Los Angeles and was announced in the January 1937 issue of Fantasy Magazine. It never had more than a few members and folded when Harry went to work on a night shift.

It's unclear whether it was a bit of a scam from the beginning, or the product of teenage megalomania.

T. Bruce Yerke became a member just before it folded.

It was mentioned in Fancy 1 under WGCC:

From Fancyclopedia 1, ca. 1944

World Girdlers' Correspondence Club. One of the mushrooms of the First Transition. No other information available.

Futurian Society of California

fl. 1942-42
Under three different names, this is one of the many ersatz clubs started by Claude Degler. James Kepner and some other neofans were members, along with Forrest J Ackerman as an honorary member. As soon as Degler left L.A., the others dropped off, leaving Ackerman the sole member and when Ackerman went into the Army, it was memberless.

Harbor Fantasy League

fl. 1942
The HFL was an early club -- perhaps the earliest -- in the greater LA area outside LA itself. It was organized in early 1942 by five married couples (including Pogo (Director), Barbara Steedman (Secretary), Dan Lyons (Treasurer), and Russ Wood (Editor)). It tried to avoid being taken over by kids by limiting membership to married couples. It met bi-weekly.

The club rather quickly dissolved when the male members started being drafted for the War and was dead by August 1942. But before it collapsed, it managed to outrage Forrest J Ackerman when one of the HFL's members suggested that he needed a psychiatrist!

From Fancyclopedia 1, ca. 1944

The Harbor Fantasy League, a group of married couples in the Los Angeles area, primarily the work of Rus Wood and Pogo. It came into existence in 1942 and shortly fell into inactivity because of members' departure for the wars.

The Knanves

fl. 1943-
A group of Insurgents which organized around 1943 in opposition to other members of LASFS over a disputed Directorate election in what was called The War of the Knanves. (The name was given to them by T. Bruce Yerke from a typo in a fanzine. No, I don't know how to pronounce it.) Their fanzine was The Knanve and was edited by T. Bruce Yerke.

• Have at Thee Knanves by Samuel D. Russell
• The Knanve by T. Bruce Yerke

The Outlanders

fl. 1948-
The Outlanders (a.k.a. the Outlander Society or OS) was a former Los Angeles-area fan club for members of LASFS who lived in the "outlands" of Los Angeles, and thus found it difficult to make it to every meeting of LASFS. The organization was founded in October 1948 and the original eight members were Len Moffatt, Rick Sneary, Stan Woolston, John Van Couvering, Con Pederson, Bill Elias, Alan Hershey and Freddie Hershey. It met monthly.

The club had the reputation of being one of the more intellectual groups in fandom, in large part because of the clubzine, The Outlander. (Art Rapp called it fandom's "most articulate and intellectual group".) Meetings were all-day sessions, but were not business meetings: there were no dues, officers, or bylaws. Members stayed connected between meetings by a continuing chain letter.

When the Outlanders were founded in 1948, some of them began using the slogan "South Gate in '58" as an interlineation or filler in their fanzines – South Gate being the town where their founder Rick Sneary, a.k.a. "the Hermit of South Gate," lived. The idea was initially to promote an after 10-year reunion of the Outlanders, but eventually it became a successful Worldcon bid. The Solacon was held in a Los Angeles hotel which was ceded for the Labor Day weekend to the Mayor of South Gate by the Mayor of Los Angeles, as South Gate did not have a hotel large enough to host the event which drew fans in the hundreds.

From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959

A fanclub (formed October 1948) for people living outside the city limits of LA; Rick Sneary's group. It met approximately monthly till mid-52. Sneary, Moffatt, Woolston, Pederson, van Couvering, and Rory Faulkner were important members. Thirteen issues of OO The Outlander were published, and the Third Westercon was produced.

The Insurgents

The Insurgents was a name given to a group of LA fans who were part of the larger insurgents movement.

Mañana Literary Society

The Mañana Literary Society was a formal meeting of SF fiction writers in Los Angeles in the 40s and 50s.

Hosted by Robert A. Heinlein, the membership included authors such as Anthony Boucher, Arthur K. Barnes, Edmond Hamilton, L. Ron Hubbard, Henry Kuttner, C. L. Moore, L. Sprague de Camp, Cleve Cartmill, Leigh Brackett, and Jack Williamson.

The characters in the mystery Rocket to the Morgue by H. H. Holmes (Anthony Boucher) were based on members of the Society.

Central L. A. Club Desolation of Smaug Mydgard Lothlorien Nargothrond Time Meddlers of Los Angeles Southwest Association of Fans SCIFI Tolkien Forever Fellowship of Southern California

Non-Local Clubs HQed in LA

The Fantasy Association Fantasy Artist Network Mythopoeic Society ARS

College Clubs

Bruin Science Fiction Club