The Explorers Club is an international multidisciplinary professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore. Since its inception in 1904, the Club has served as a meeting point and unifying force for explorers and scientists worldwide. Our headquarters is located at 46 East 70th Street in New York City. Click here for a virtual tour of our Club.
Promoting Exploration for Over One Hundred Years
Founded in New York City in 1904, The Explorers Club promotes the scientific exploration of land, sea, air, and space by supporting research and education in the physical, natural and biological sciences. The Club’s members have been responsible for an illustrious series of famous firsts: First to the North Pole, first to the South Pole, first to the summit of Mount Everest, first to the deepest point in the ocean, first to the surface of the moon—all accomplished by our members.
The Club provides expedition resources including funding, online information, and member-to-member consultation. And our famed annual dinners honor accomplishments in exploration. But probably the most powerful resource available to those who join the Club is fellowship with other members—a global network of expertise, experience, technology, industry, and support. The Explorers Club actively encourages public interest in exploration and the sciences through its public lectures program, publications, travel program, and other events. The Club also maintains Research Collections, including a library and map room, to preserve the history of the Club and to assist those interested and engaged in exploration and scientific research.
Carrying the Flag
The Explorers Club flag represents an impressive history of courage and accomplishment and has been carried on hundreds of expeditions by Club members since 1918. To carry the Club flag is an honor and a privilege. It has flown at both poles, from the highest peaks of the greatest mountain ranges, travelled to the depths of the ocean, to the lunar surface, and outer space. A flag expedition must further the cause of exploration and field science. Today there are 202 numbered flags, each with its own history.
Anthropologists to Zoologists
The Explorers Club, which has some thirty Chapters in the United States and around the world, is characterized by the great diversity of its members’ backgrounds and interests. The seven founding members included two polar explorers, the curator of birds and mammals at The American Museum of Natural History, an archaeologist, a war correspondent and author, a professor of physics and an ethnologist. Today the membership includes field scientists and explorers from over sixty countries whose disciplines include: aeronautics, anthropology, archaeology, astronomy, biology, ecology, entomology, mountaineering, marine biology, oceanography, paleontology, physics, planetology, polar exploration, and zoology. You can find out more about what our members are doing in the Expeditions section of the site.
THE STEPHEN CHAPMAN-SCHROEDER SCHOLARSHIP FUND
In 1995, the Chapter established the Stephen Chapman-Schroeder Scholarship Fund in the memory of our long-time Chapter supporter and Treasurer, who died suddenly in July, 1994. Managed by First Union Security, the fund has accumulated over $4000 in this growth account.
Past recipients of this award have included Hawk Mountain Sanctuary for an International Internship Program for Ornithologists, the North Carolina State Museum of North Carolina to help pay for a trip to China to study mollusks and bivalves, and a grant to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center for studies on marine mammals.
In 2002 the Chapter awarded a $500.00 Stephen Chapman-Schroeder Scholarship to the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Kempton, Pennsylvania. The Sanctuary will use the award to support its International Internship Program which provides career development and hands-on training to young people who have made a commitment to a career in conservation. According to Keith Bildstein, director of research and education at Hawk Mountain, the program has trained more than 200 people from 34 countries since its inception in 1976.
The Chapter is now considering various institutions, graduate and/or post-students as its grant or scholarship recipients. The successful applicant will be conducting research or field work related to, or actively advancing exploration and/or the physical sciences. We are soliciting nominations by Chapter members and guests.
For further information, contact Jamie Robinson Programs Chair and Webmaster.