Introduction
In this area we give a chronology of the dates of founding of most of
the scholarly societies covered by the Project. We have prepared this
section to complement the historical remarks in the set of essays that
begin the Project.
The chronology makes it clear that until well into the nineteenth
century, scholarly societies tended to be of broad scope (usually covering
all the sciences or all the arts, or both), and associated with a definite
geographical area. The chronology also demonstrates that with the passage
of time, increasingly specialized scholarly societies came into being.
The chronology covers virtually all of the societies included in the
Scholarly Societies Project. The only omissions are for a handful
of societies included prior to February 1995 for which the editor has not
been able to determine a founding date, not even by contacting the
societies themselves. For societies added since that time, a condition
of inclusion in the Project is that all societies must provide the year of
founding when requested, if the Editor cannot determine it from the web
site or using standard directories.
