The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, established in 1780, is one of the oldest learned societies in the country. John Adams, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock were among the 62 founding members.
During the period of the stories on this website, members included Benjamin Silliman (elected 1815), Edward Hitchcock (1834), Thomas T. Bouve, Henry Ingersoll Bowditch, Jacob Bigelow, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John James Audubon, Louis Agassiz, Asa Gray, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathan Appleton (who contributed generously to the creation of Appleton Cabinet at Amherst College), James Hall, John Torrey, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Heman Humphries (Hitchcock's predecessor as president of Amherst College), Charles T. Jackson, Charles Shepard, John Collins Warren, and Jeffries Wyman. William Buckland, Charles Lyell, Roderick Murchison, Adam Sedgwick, and William Whewell were considered Foreign Honorary Members.
The American astronomer Maria Mitchell was elected as one of the first woman members in 1848, in recognition of her discovery of a comet. Elizabeth Agassiz and the Englishwoman Mary Somerville were inducted at the same time.
The Proceedings were published beginning in 1846. In 1955, the title was changed to Daedalus, which continues publication today.