American Mathematical Society - History

History

It was founded in 1888 as the New York Mathematical Society, the brainchild of Thomas Fiske, who was impressed by the London Mathematical Society on a visit to England. John Howard Van Amringe was the first president and Fiske became secretary. The society soon decided to publish a journal, but ran into some resistance, due to concerns about competing with the American Journal of Mathematics. The result was the Bulletin of the New York Mathematical Society, with Fiske as editor-in-chief. The de facto journal, as intended, was influential in increasing membership. The popularity of the Bulletin soon led to Transactions of the American Mathematical Society and Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society, which were also de facto journals. In 1891 Charlotte Scott became the first woman to join the society. The society reorganized under its present name and became a national society in 1894, and that year Scott served as the first woman on the first Council of the American Mathematical Society. In 1951, the society's headquarters moved from New York City to Providence, Rhode Island. In 1954 the society called for the creation of a new teaching degree, a Doctor of Arts in Mathematics, similar to a PhD but without a research thesis. Julia Robinson was the first female president of the American Mathematical Society (1983–1984), but was unable to complete her term as she was suffering from leukemia. The society also added an office in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1984 and an office in Washington, D.C. in 1992. In 1988 the Journal of the American Mathematical Society was created, with the intent of being the flagship journal of the AMS.