In the American colonies the first was probably the Boston 
Philosophical Society (1683) , with Increase and Cotton Mather 
as leading members. Cotton Mather was also one of several 
Americans who were elected to membership in the Royal Society.' 
Because the Mathers and their associates became involved in 
political and theological disputes, to the neglect of natural 
history, the Boston Philosophical Society lasted only a few 
years. The first permanent organization was the American Phil- 
osophical Society, founded in 1769, and absorbing several other 
groups in Philadelphia, and naming Benjamin Franklin, America's 
most eminent scientist, as president.* 
many 
Not to be outdone by Philadelphia, the Boston intelld 
under the leadership of John Adams founded the American Ac 
of Arts and Sciences in 1780. During the next fifty years 
more societies were founded in states, in college and univi 
communities, and in cities. 5 It was in such centers as Boston, 
New Haven, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and 
Charleston that the most important of these organizations were 
founded. Here were the long established communities, the col- 
leges, the libraries, the theaters, and the music halls. And, 
most important, perhaps, here was the wealth to support such 
activities, and from the wealth, the leisure to enjoy intellec- 
tual and eathefir niiyoii-i+c 
as 
As this was true in the East 
West 
towns and settlements, was 
as thev ceased 
the urban centers of the older settled parts of the United 
States. It is not really remarkable, for example, that a West- 
ern Museum Society was founded in Cincinnati in 1818, and an 
Academy of Natural Sciences in St. Louis in 1836, or an Anti- 
quarian and Natural History Society in Little Rock in 1837. It 
would have been more remarkable if they had not, because each 
city in its own section of the Middle West was an economic cen- 
ter, and partly because each was an economic center, each was 
aiso an Intellectual center. Each strove mightily to'cease 
eing a rough frontier town, and become a sophisticated urban 
community. Not all succeeded in doing this at once, but it is 
the effort put forth that is significant. 
So 
which had 
activities, 
was IT ^^^^°ce as a part of their cultural activities, 
tZJt /^u^ influence back of the early scientific organiza 
lions of the Middle West. Other nowerfm infin^nr-ps ?rew ou 
., ^wv Other 
of the Middle Vest itself. 
saw a vast undPv**ir^«o^ 
and enterprise 
s of 
unknown quantity and quality. Dr. Daniel Drake, a leading 
233 
