Historical Notes
For more than two centuries, the Academy has sustained
the high purpose expressed in its founding
charter with an evolving sense of mission and the collaboration of the
finest minds in each succeeding generation. The
original incorporators were later joined by Benjamin Franklin, George
Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Charles Bulfinch, Alexander Hamilton, John Quincy
Adams, and others. During the 19th century, the elected membership included
Daniel Webster, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John J. Audubon, Louis Agassiz, Asa
Gray, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Alexander Graham Bell.
In the early decades of the twentieth century,
membership in the Academy continued to grow as other noted scholars,
scientists, and statesmen were elected. These included A. A. Michelson,
Percival Lowell, Alexander Agassiz, and, later, Charles Steinmetz, Charles
Evans Hughes, Samuel Eliot Morison, Albert Einstein, Henry Lee Higginson,
Woodrow Wilson, William Howard Taft, and Henry Cabot Lodge.
For a current member list,
click here.
From the beginning, the Academy has extended honorary
membership to prominent scholars, scientists, and statesmen from abroad. Some
notable foreign members have been Thomas Carlyle, John Stuart Mill, William
Gladstone, John Singleton Copley, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and—in the 20th
century—Neils Bohr, Winston Churchill, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Albert Schweitzer.
Recent honorary members from abroad include Claude Levi-Strauss, Kazuo
Ishigoro, Stephen Hawking, and Abba Eban.
The Seal of the
Academy
As described in the original Academy statutes of 1780,
the seal's principal figure is Minerva, the Roman goddess of war—a symbol
appropriate for an organization created in the midst of the American
Revolution. But Minerva, like her Greek counterpart Athena, was also the
goddess of wisdom, science and trade, and the arts. Her temple on the Aventine
Hill was a meeting place for skilled craftsman, writers, and actors.
Around Minerva are representations of the new
country—on her right, a field of Indian corn, a stand of oaks, and the outline
of a town; at her feet, a hoe, a plow, and a sickle; on her left a quadrant and
a telescope, a ship heading for shore, and the sun completely risen above the
cloud. Over the whole is the motto SUB LIBERTATE FLORENT.
According to the statutes the seal "depicts the
situation of a new country, depending principally on agriculture but attending
at the same time to arms, commerce, and the sciences...The sun represents the
rising state of America…and the motto conveys the idea that arts and sciences
flourish best in free States."
Stated Meetings
The term "Stated Meetings" dates back to the early years of the Academy. These
gatherings were to occur from fall through spring on the second Wednesday
evening of the month, as they still do in Cambridge. When the Massachusetts
Historical Society was founded eleven years after the Academy, it set its
meetings on "the day next following those appointed for the American Academy."
This regularity fit the needs of many members who belonged to both
organizations. As Walter Whitehill, former longtime librarian of the Boston
Athenæum as well as the Academy, put it, "Boston institutions more readily
accept change in large matters than in small ones; in ideas rather than in
details of daily life. If people do not tinker endlessly with dates and times
and meetings, one knows, without recourse to notices or engagement books, when
certain things occur, thus avoiding conflicts and minor hassles when more
important concerns obtain." For a list of upcoming and recent Stated Meetings,
click here.
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