The Conversation Club at the University of Maine in Orono began in 1897 when University of Maine President Abram W. Harris and Charles D. Woods, Professor of Agriculture and Director of the Experiment Station, decided that the university needed a club modeled on the Conversation Club they had belonged to at Wesleyan University. Both had served on the Wesleyan faculty, and a faculty Conversation Club had been in existence there since 1862. On April 6, 1897, Harris and Woods met with ten other faculty members and proposed the establishment of a club "for conversational purposes." Rules were drawn up and the membership was to be limited to 17, the number of faculty who were listed in the 1896-97 catalogue of professorial rank or its equivalent.
From the description of Records, 1897-1977. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 55070731
