Paul Harris -
Founder of Rotary
 Paul
P. Harris was the founder of Rotary. He was born in Racine,
Wisconsin, USA on April 19, 1869, and spent his early years in
Wallingford, Vermont, prior to attending the University of
Vermont, Princeton University and the University of Iowa.
Following graduation from Law School of the University of Iowa
in 1891, he spent the next five years seeing the world and
coming to know his fellow man before settling down to practice
law.
In 1896 Paul Harris went to Chicago to practice law. One day in
1900 he dined with a lawyer friend in Rogers Park, a residential
section of Chicago. After dinner they took a walk, and he was
impressed by the fact that his friend stopped at several stores
and shops in the neighborhood and introduced him to the
proprietors, who were his friends.
Paul Harris' law clients were business friends, not social
friends, and he resolved to organize a club that would band
together a group of representative business and professional men
in friendship and fellowship.
On February 23, 1905, the club's first meeting took place, and
the nucleus was formed for the thousands of Rotary Clubs that
were later organized throughout the world.
The new club, which Paul Harris named "Rotary"
because the members met in rotation in their various places of
business, met with general approval and the club membership grew
rapidly.
When Paul Harris became president of the club in it's third
year, he was anxious to extend Rotary to other cities because he
was convinced that the Rotary Club could be developed into an
important service movement.
When he passed away in January, 1947, he was President Emeritus
of Rotary International. |
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