Now, who are member of the group can vary from day to day, but as a whole, they talk and golf as a group. That is the interaction that is becoming harder to achieve.
Western Pennsylvania had one of the largest number of gold courses in the US. Not only did executives golf, but a lot of working class people adopted the sport after WWII. It was a way older men (and women) could walk and talk together. If the conversation dried up, you could always talk about your last swing of the golf club. The game was the center of conversation, but only in the sense all members of the group golfing could talk about their game, if other topics died out.
Before the 1950s, when the conversion from walking to work to driving to work was completed (prior to about 1954 most people walked to work, it is only as income for working class people went up that they purchased cars and then homes in the suburbs and started to driver to work) men from the mills (and other employers) would walk to the local bar and sit down with their fellow workers and talk about what was going on at their job. With the switch to driving to work, such meetings just stop occurring. People did stop by, but a lot of co-workers just entered their cars and drove home. In the days of walking to work, you would start a conversion with those same people, and to continue the conversation stop in the bar for a "Drink". Entering your car to drive to work, stopped such conversion and thus less chance of getting together after work.
Now, the high rate of Unionization of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s prevented the above development from becoming a bad problem. The unions did things as a union, Christmas parties, summer picnics, etc to get the workers together and talk. Not formal talks, but informal get together so ideas could be talked about (what else do you talk about with co-workers, then work? when people get together they talk about what they have in common, thus such get togethers permitted people to exchange ideas and to work as one, which is what a union needs to do to be a union).
Starting with PATCO and then the Steel industry in the early 1980s, such union solidarity was attacked. The whole thrust was to undermined worker stability, for when workers feel secure in their jobs, they will work together to make it better for themselves. On the other hand, if you are unsecure in your job, you do not do anything to rock the boat of employment, i.e. workers, when they fear losing their jobs, do not work together to better themselves.
I bring up unions and de-unionization for unions were the main group affected by the decline in volunteerism and it appears the whole attack on volunteerism had an under current of an attack on unions. Those people who tend to be local leaders in a union (or lead unionization efforts) are also the same people who tend to volunteer for other activities. It is the people who are on church committees, community betterment groups, fraternal organizations, parent-members of the local PTA, who also the ones who lead unionization efforts. This was know in the late 1800s (For example the leaders of the Homestead Strike of 1892 where also the leaders of various fraternal organizations, churches, and other community betterment groups founded since Homestead was founded in 1888, a report of 1919 on Homestead, 27 years later, reported on the absence of such organizations in Homestead, for US Steel which ran that town knew leaders for unionization were the people who also volunteered for such activities, US Steel also paid bar keepers in the town to tell them what the workers talked about in their taverns, for such meeting places were another area where unionization movements would start).
Yes, they is a connection between the growth of Anti-unionization in the US and the fall in volunteerism. I once talked to an Administrative Law Judge who was big into community groups and wondered why so few people in my areas join such groups. I pointed out to him, this was a big coal area from the 1850s till today. in the period before the Great Depression, the coal companies did all they could to prevent unionization, and one way was to fire anyone who would join any type of organization. They permitted people to go to church, but watched people who volunteer to be on any church committee. Going to church was not a sign of willingness to join a union, but the willingness to volunteer for a COMMITTEE to help run the church was a sign of willingness to join a union. Thus people were taught NOT to join such committees or other organizations (and often fired and driven out of town of they did and were NOT part of management, management personal could join such groups but not the workers).
I bring this all up, to show it is the willingness and the ability to work with others on a constant basis that is the key to any organization. The decision to work people different hours hurts the ability of such people to get together constantly. The adoption of the Automobile actually help this division, but was NOT a fatal factor in itself till the union came under heavy attacks in the 1970s and 1980s. Golf is one way to get people, who have OTHER things in common to get together and "Bond" (lack of a better word). People tend to want to go with people they share interests with, for example work. Thus, golf, like bar in the pre-automobile days, is place for people with share interests to get together and talk (This is the same reason salesmen love Golf, they get to talk and "Bond" with their customers, so they get use to working together for a common goal, in the case of salesmen, to sell, in the case of customers, to buy).
Just pointing out that golf, is more like the rest then most people think. People just do not go to a golf club and join a other golfers in a foursome (Some people do, but that is NOT the rule). People plan to get together and golf together, be they salesmen and customers, management of even union members. I suspect the decline in gold courses is tied in with the decline in workers golfing, for they do not have friends who are off work at the same time as they are. Once you are out of the habit of doing something (for example bars and employees when they walked to work), it is hard to re=start (Thus Unions had Christmas Parties and Summer Picnics for they members, just to get them together at least twice a year).
Golf is like those old union Christmas Parties and Summer Picnics (and bars before people started to drive to work), is a way for people who have things in common to get together and learn to work together. That is the key to volunteerism, thus bowling leagues and golf foursome are indications that you have a lot of people willing to work with other people, and a decline in BOTH shows that such volunteerism is on the decline.
Sidenote: People on DU always question why the Democratic Party of the 1900-1920 period supported prohibition. They often blame the leader of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, William Jennings Bryan, for he was a tea teetotaler. What people forget is that the bars working class people went to after work in most urban areas prior to prohibition were controlled by the GOP. This was part of the decision of business to keep an eye on workers (my comment about US Steel and Homestead on 1919 for example). Thus the Democratic Party saw Prohibition was a way to destroy that part of the GOP base, and thus supported prohibition. During the Steel Strike of 1919 was when Prohibition was passed, for the GOP had found its control of urban bars was NOT enough to prevent the unionization attempt of 1919 thus came around to supporting prohibition. The Coal Strike of 1928, is when the Democratic Party turned against Prohibition. Now, Speakeasies existed in the 1920s, but union organizers avoided them. Remember the time period, given a choice between hitting a speak easy selling millions of dollars of bad booze and a store that had one bottle of beer, but where workers trying to organize an union were meeting, the local police would hit the later every time. They were paid to see the enemy not as being booze but unions. Thus speakeasies were rarely used to organize a union, and such organizers had to find other places to meet (church halls were popular). The Coal Strike of 1928 was especially vicious. In the Coal fields of Western Pennsylvania, the only school where children of UNION strikers could go to school, was a scene of a shoot out between strikers and strike breakers. Thus the Democratic Party and parts of the GOP saw they need to control these problems during strikes. The GOP saw that the speakeasies were NOT where union members were talking, and remember the days when they did (and thus could be spied on) and started to support the repeal of Prohibition. The Democratic Party had used the absence of the GOP control bars to do a slow but steady take over of various cities (Pittsburgh and Chicago are two examples of this). The Democratic party also saw that this affect had gone as far as it could with prohibition and thus decided prohibition was no longer needed to destroy the GOP power base in urban areas (and the Democrats saw they growing powers in the urban areas of the early 1930s as an opportunity to reform those bars as power bases, but this time for the Democratic Party). Thus the Democratic Party, with a good bit of GOP support repealed prohibition in 1933. The bars re-opened, but in many urban areas owned by Democrats, who did NOT have a habit of spying on their customers for big business. Thus the union were able to back to the bars and talk to workers, but this time NOT be spied on by members of the GOP who were also spies for the employers of the workers.
Yes, in many ways, Prohibition was the key to Democratic control of the US from 1930 to 1980. Prohibition saw the switch of urban bars from GOP base of support, to Democratic base of Support. With the switch, urban areas ceased to be GOP controlled and turned Democratic (Prior to the 1920s, Urban areas in the US tended to be overwhelmingly Republican, almost as Republican and Inner cities are Democratic today).
Prohibition along with the movement of rural southern Democrats to Northern cities was why urban areas became Democratic Strongholds to this day (White Southerns mover north first, followed by African Americans, who once in urban northern cities joined the Democratic Party, even through most African Americans prior to the 1930s had been good Republicans since the US Civil War. All politics is local and local Democratic party leaders made an effort to recruit African Americans along with other "Ethnics" as these urban areas switched parties, the African Americans went with the switch for the GOP was offering them nothing.
Just a comment that when you see a switch from one dominant party to another, it is often the product of several different factors. One factor is rarely enough to switch dominance. In the case of the 1920s and 1930s it was several factors, one was prohibition that destroyed the base for GOP control of urban areas, second was the decision of the Northern Democratic Party to address the local concerns of African Americans as while as other Ethics, another was that the 1920 census was the first US Census where more Americans lived in Urban areas as oppose to Rural Areas. The decision of the Democratic Party to support labor was also a factor, prior to the 1930s Labor had a problem, while the progressive wing of the Democratic Party supported Labor, the conservative wing did not. Thus the party had to work out this tension and not always successfully. On the other hand the GOP just refused to address the concerns of African American in anything but words, when what the Democratic during the 1930s to help ALL poorer Americans, also helped African Americans (Thus the overwhelming switch in African American party loyality between 1930 and 1960).
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