Descriptive Entry

This record unit includes correspondence (1871-1968), minutes (1871-1965), records of investments and other fiscal records (1871-1968), publications (1871-1962), newspaper clippings, and photographs. Documentation is full before 1950, with some significant gaps.

Most of the records deal with administration of the Society: nomination and election of officers, adoption of and changes in the constitution and by-laws, plans for weekly meetings, and special lectures before the Society. The fiscal records are of particular interest for study of the financing of learned societies in America. Included is information regarding Charles G. Abbot, Spencer Fullerton Baird, Leonard Carmichael, George Gamow, Charles B. Goode, Joseph Henry, Samuel P. Langley, Albert James Myer, Simon Newcomb, and Harold Clayton Urey.

Historical Note

The Philosophical Society of Washington (PSW) was organized on March 13, 1871, by forty-seven men who wished to establish, in the District of Columbia, a society dedicated solely to the advancement of science. It was subsequently incorporated in 1915. The Society's stated goals are the promotion of science, the advancement of learning, and the free exchange of views among its members on scientific subjects. It has pursued these goals through regular and special lectures on scientific topics and through the publication of the Philosophical Society of Washington Bulletin.