The Family (club)

The Family is a private club with a history rooted in a heated journalistic dispute from the early twentieth century. In 1901, the writer Ambrose Bierce published a poem that appeared to predict the assassination of President William McKinley, which was printed in William Randolph Hearst's San Francisco Examiner. When the rival Bohemian Club attempted to censor those associated with Hearst's papers over the controversy, a group of reporters and editors resigned in protest. They established their own organization in 1902, adopting the name The Family to emphasize a sense of brotherhood where every member stands on equal footing.