The first known indication of a Washington, D.C. area group was a 1924 Explorers Club news note recording an “…excellent lecture program being conducted in Washington, D.C.”

In 1937, active, prominent Explorers Club members living in the Washington, D.C. area established The Explorers Club Washington Round Table Group (subsequently shortened to Explorers Club Washington Group ECWG). About 20 members met monthly at the Cosmos Club or the Army-Navy Club. Thus originated The Explorers Club first group outside New York City. ECWG remains one of the club’s largest chapters currently with 310 members. 

The Group’s leader in 1937 was Col. H.T. Cowling, U.S. Army Air Corps, a student of Tibetan culture. Other early members included Alexander Wetmore and Waldo L. Schmitt of the Smithsonian Institution; R. Harvey Sargent and Gerald Fitzgerald of the U.S. Geological Survey; Dr. Isaiah Bowman of Johns Hopkins University; and Dr. Roy L Sexton (father of the late Roy L. Sexton, Jr., former ECWG archivist).

Edward L. Sweeney, for whom the Club’s Sweeney Medal is named, was an early ECWG member and was largely responsible for the clubs expansion nationally and internationally. He was EC president (1965-1967) when voting rights were extended to “out-of-New York” members provided they attend the annual business meeting in New York City. A few years later all members received the right to vote by mail. In 1993, with specific encouragement from ECWG, a Vice President for Chapters was added to the three vice presidencies established in 1904. Sweeney also hosted one-day “Bombashes” at his Gibson Island (MD) estate, more a crab and oyster feast than our present-day annual weekend outing bearing the same name.

ECWG with about 310 members representing 10% of the total club membership, holds monthly programs of dinner and luncheon lectures and special events in which we are joined several times annually by other Washington, D.C. societies also relating to exploration. ECWG has a growing educational outreach program which was augmented in 1990 by our co-sponsorship, an exploration-oriented course in the Campus-on-the-Mall of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1997, we instituted an ECWG grant program (ECWG Exploration and Field Research Grant Program) at the university post-graduate level for applicants enrolled in institutions in our ECWG geographic area. In 1990 ECWG was granted 501(c) (3) status by the IRS, and in 1994 the ECWG became incorporated in Delaware.

Membership in the ECWG requires Explorers Club membership residence in DC, MD, VA or WVA. “Out-of-area” ECWG membership also requires payment of normal $25 dues to the ECWG.

Written by William H. Littlewood, FE 56