The Demosthenes Club was created at the University of Iowa in 1939 as an "unofficial part of the speech and psychological clinic. [The] purpose of the club, aside from its social aspect, is to give members more and better speaking situations and to help them evauluate their problems through group disccussions" according to their first newsletter, the Iowa Demosthenator, Vol 1, No 1. The group consisted of individuals with a stutter to engage with each other. In March 5, 1941, they began to produce a newsletter titled "The Demosthenator" to keep up with the members of the club, their alummni, and individuals who were interested in the work that the Iowa speech and psychological clinic was doing at the time.

The group wanted to ablolish the word "stutterer" in favor of the word "demosthenator." They stated that they were "tired of the term because it was tacked onto anyone with a speech defect and suggested a negative evaulation. Removal of the label, they say, lessened the probability of their reacting more to it than to the actual defect (The Demosthenator, Vol.1, No.1). As a response, references to the club and it's members should include their preferred term with a note on it's meaning.