From 1947: The Society of Architectural Historians

Abstract

AT A MEETING OF the officers and directors in New York on 1 February 1947, it was voted to drop the word American from the name of the American Society of Architectural Historians and to approve steps toward incorporation taken by the officers. Kenneth J. Conant from Harvard was president, but it must have been Carroll L. V. Meeks from Yale (who had been secretary-treasurer, then vice president, and finally president in 1948) who took the lead in having the society incorporated, since it was done in Connecticut and that is where the society is still incorporated. The mimeographed notice of this action makes it clear that the society was still struggling with the difficulties encountered during the war years, and promised new efforts at activating and reactivating committees to get the organization going once again and to restore the publication schedule of the Journal. From the beginning the society had four aims that are as valid today as they were in 1940. (1) To provide a useful forum and to facilitate enjoyable contacts for all those whose special interest is the history of architecture. (2) To foster an appreciation and understanding of great buildings and architects of historic cultures. (3) To encourage research in architectural history and to aid in disseminating the results of such research. (4) To promote the preservation of significant architectural monuments. Within just a few years of incorporation and the renaming of the society, these aims were developed into a program of activities and the publication of a Journal that in large part still characterize the life of the society. Volume VI of the Journal published 90 pages in 1947 under the editorship to Alan K. Laing from the University of Illinois, in two double numbers. The first, Numbers 1 and 2, was set in type and printed, but for the second, Numbers 3 and 4, it was necessary to revert to the mimeograph machine. The reverse happened in 1948 with two double numbers of about the same length. Two double issues in 1949 were mimeographed but twice as long. Walter L. Creese, then at the University of Louisville, became editor in 1950 with Volume VIII. Beginning with his first issue, double Numbers 1 and 2, the Journal was regularly set in type and printed, and beginning with Number 3 of that year, it began to appear regularly as a quarterly. Most issues were about 32 pages long, a size that remained constant until the late 1950s when the Journal began slowly to grow. In 1953 when J. D. Forbes, then at Wabash College, became editor, the Lakeside Press of R. R. Donnelley and Sons