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 USA. 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 March 2008, the ASA reported 10,830 paid members (of which 3,247 were students) and had a portfolio of short- and long-term investments of about $5.8 million, a significant proportion of which supports ongoing ASA programs. 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, 1906–1907), William Graham Sumner (Yale University, 1908–1909), Franklin ... log in or subscribe to read full text