City Readers Digital Historic Collections at the New York Society Library

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, frequently known as the American Academy, is one of the oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and a leading center for policy research in the United States. Election to the Academy is considered one of the nation's highest honors since its founding during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, and other scholar-patriots who contributed prominently to the establishment of the new nation, its government, and its Constitution.

Today the Academy is charged with a dual function: to elect to membership the finest minds and most influential leaders, drawn from science, scholarship, business, public affairs, and the arts, from each generation, and to conduct policy studies in response to the needs of society. Major Academy projects now have focused on higher education and research, humanities and cultural studies, scientific and technological advances, politics, population and the environment, and the welfare of children. Dædalus, the Academy's quarterly journal, is widely regarded as one of the world's leading intellectual journals.

The Academy is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.