in credit spelled denial of membership. Younger gentlemen, who had been rejected membership to the Pelican Club, organized The Orleans Club in 1851 with less restrictive membership policies, but similarly closed at the outset of the Civil War. A few members of this club would later found The Pickwick Club, the city's second-oldest gentleman's club, who would influence the development of modern-day Mardi Gras. Unlike The Pickwick Club or Louisiana Club, the Boston Club was not initially a "closed club" and was more diverse. Members could invite guests into the club freely where they could use the premises "gratis," though in the traditional club style new members were put up through a blackball process. A few Jewish men, such as Judah P. Benjamin and the first Rex, Lewis Solomon, had been members of the club in its earlier days. Eventually, however, the club became almost exclusively Anglo-American as racial attitudes in New Orleans hardened after the Civil War, and even white minorities would be blackballed leading to an air of anti-semitism, especially with the rise of the Crescent City White League. For his merits early in his career, Edgar B. Stern was invited to join. Stern declined the invitation on learning that close Jewish friends would be unable to join. The Boston Club has no reciprocal relationships with other national or international gentlemen's clubs, unlike other revered national societal institutions such as the Union Club in New York, or the Metropolitan Club in Washington, D.C. Famous guests In 1873, Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery attended a luncheon. General Ulysses S. Grant lunched at The Boston Club in 1880. Oscar Wilde visited the club in Summer of 1882 while on tour and was made an honorary member. He gave a lecture at the Grand Opera House on Canal Street on “Decorative Art.” John J. Pershing visited on February 17, 1920. The Duke of Windsor and the Duchess of Windsor, February 21, 1950 It was customary, until 1992, for Rex (King of Carnival) and his queen to lunch at the club after the Rex parade during Mardi Gras. In addition, the Boston Club entertained the queen of the carnival and her court during the parade. Notable members Judah P. Benjamin, QC, lawyer and politician who was a US Senator from Louisiana, a Confederate Cabinet Officer and, after his escape to the United Kingdom at the end of the American Civil War,