Blackwell Reference Online

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The American Sociological Association (ASA) is currently the largest and most influential membership organization of professional sociologists in the US. The ASA began its organizational life in 1905 when a small group of self-selected scholars representing several existing scholarly organizations (including the American Economic Association, the American Historical Association, and the American Political Science Association) proposed a separate and independent American Sociological Society (ASS) (“Organization of the American Sociological Society” 1906). The first ASS annual meeting convened December 27–29, 1906, in Providence, Rhode Island, with 115 members and a full program of scholarly papers. In 1959 the organization's name was formally changed from the American Sociological Society to the American Sociological Association. As of 2004, the ASA reported 13,715 paid members and an investment portfolio valued at $7.1 million. Corporately, the first ASS presidents comprised the major white, male, intellectual architects of what became the American sociological tradition and included (with institutional affiliations and dates of ASS presidency): Lester Frank Ward (Brown University, 1906–7), William Graham Sumner (Yale University, 1908–9), Franklin Henry Giddings (Columbia University, 1910–11), Albion Woodbury Small (University of Chicago, 1912–13), Edward Alsworth Ross (University ... log in or subscribe to read full text