University of Chicago Science Fiction Club

(Did you mean the University of Illinois at Chicago Science Fiction Society?)

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. It's 1952 Halloween party included an imitation black mass, which gained it unwelcome notice by the university's President. Earl Kemp became 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 university club was founded in the 60s as the University of Chicago SF Society. By 1969, it was meeting in Ida Noyes Hall on campus. It was started in April 1968 with Jerry Lapidus, Michael Jensen, Linda Kravinski and Charles Fuhrer as officers. This club made a short-lived and unsuccessful bid for the 1973 Worldcon. See Chicago in '73.

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Club

1950—

This is a club page. Please extend it by adding information about when and where the club met, when and by whom it was founded, how long it was active, notable accomplishments, well-known members, clubzines, any conventions it ran, external links to the club's website, other club pages, etc. When there's a floreat (Fl.), this indicates the time or times for which we have found evidence that the club existed. This is probably not going to represent the club's full lifetime, so please update it if you can!