The Massachusetts legislature established the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on 4 May 1780. Following the broad vision of John Adams, the Academy's founder, the charter directed the Academy's programs toward both the development of knowledge—historical, natural, physical, and medical—and its applications for the improvement of society. The sixty-two incorporating fellows, all from Massachusetts, represented varying interests and high standing in the political, professional, and commercial sectors of the state. The first new members, chosen by the Academy in 1781, included Benjamin Franklin and George Washington as American fellows, as well as several foreign honorary members.
The initial volume of Academy Memoirs appeared in 1785, and the Proceedings followed in 1846. The early publications reveal the important place that science and technology held in the Academy from the outset, reflecting an era when the learned population could comprehend and even contribute to the development of scientific knowledge. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the professional scientists had largely come to represent the public face of the institution. Presentations on historical or other general interest topics at the meetings of the Academy, however, helped to sustain the founding concept of a broader learned culture, and this practice began to accelerate early in the twentieth century. The linkage of specialized and general knowledge in the Academy's history is exemplified by the important debates over Darwin's Origin of Species in the early months of 1860. Though viewed retrospectively as a clash between Harvard naturalists Asa Gray and Louis Agassiz—pro and con, respectively—a number of other Academy members participated as well. Much of the debate was summarized in the Proceedings, the publication of which continued for more than a hundred years; the content of the Proceedings now appears in the annual Records. In the 1950s the Academy launched its journal Daedalus, reflecting a postwar commitment to a broader intellectual and socially-oriented program.
The Academy has sponsored a number of awards throughout its history. Its first award, established in 1796 by Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford), honored distinguished work on "heat and light" and provided support for research activities. Additional prizes recognized important contributions in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities. In 2000, a scholar-patriot award was inaugurated to honor individuals who have made significant contributions to the work of the Academy and whose lives exemplify the founders' vision of service to society.
During most of the nineteenth century, the Academy shared the headquarters of the Boston Athenaeum. Its first home was acquired in Boston in 1904. In the 1950s the Academy moved to Brookline, Massachusetts, and in 1981 the society moved into a new house in Cambridge, built with funds provided by former Academy president Edwin Land.
In the second half of the twentieth century, the Academy took significant steps to strengthen its ability to promote service and study. Projects became a central focus of the Academy, and a full-time professional staff was engaged. In an age of specialization, the multidisciplinary character of the Academy was seen as an important asset in dealing with the array of new problems that characterized the post–World War II era. In the late 1950s, arms control emerged as a signature concern of the Academy as scientists, social scientists, and humanists grappled with the social and political dimensions of scientific change. The Academy also engaged in collaborative institution-building, serving, for example, as the catalyst in establishing the national humanities center in North Carolina.
A new strategic plan, developed in the late 1990s, focused the Academy's efforts in three major areas: science, technology, and global security; social policy and education; and humanities and culture. In 2002, the Academy established a new visiting scholars program to support younger scholars.
Since its founding, 10,000 fellows and foreign honorary members have been elected to the Academy, with over 4,000 currently on the roster. From the beginning, the membership has included not only scientists and scholars but also an increasing number of writers and artists as well as representatives from the political and business sectors. Academy fellows have included such notables as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John James Audubon, Joseph Henry, Washington Irving, Josiah Willard Gibbs, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Willa Cather, T. S. Eliot, Edward R. Murrow, Jonas Salk, Eudora Welty, and Edward K. (Duke) Ellington. Foreign honorary members have included Leonhard Euler, Marquis de Lafayette, Alexander von Humboldt, Leopold von Ranke, Charles Darwin, Jawaharlal Nehru, Werner Heisenberg, and Alec Guinness. Astronomer Maria Mitchell was the first woman to be elected to the Academy, in 1848.
Until the 1930s the privilege of voting and holding office in the Academy was effectively reserved to those resident in Massachusetts. The postwar years saw a significant change. With a larger number of members elected from across the country, the Western Center was established in the late 1960s and the Midwest Center several years later. In 2000, the first international meeting was held in Paris. Now in its third century, the Academy is an active national and international learned society whose independence enables it to help shape public policy, contribute to intellectual debate, and advance the life of the mind.
Bibliography
American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Home page at http://www.amacad.org.
Whitehill, Walter Muir. "Early Learned Societies in Boston and Vicinity." In The Pursuit of Knowledge in the Early American Republic: American Scientific and Learned Societies from Colonial Times to the Civil War. Edited by Alexandra Oleson and Sanborn C. Brown. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.
—Leslie Berlowitz
