The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Academy of Arts and Letters

ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS, an American institution founded in 1898 by the American Social Science Association. At its annual meeting that year the Association elected a select group of American authors and artists, who should constitute a National Institute of Arts and Letters. Membership was to be based on distinguished achievement in art, literature or music. At first the body was limited to a membership of 150, then increased to 250. This body then proceeded to organize an Academy of Arts and Letters, the members of which were to be recruited from the general membership of the Institute. The first seven members were elected in 1904: William Dean Howells, Augustus Saint Gaudens, Edmund Clarence Stedman, John La Farge, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain), John Hay and Edward A. MacDowell. These were empowered to elect additional members, each new member being given a vote, until the whole body of 50 had been organized. The living members of the Academy in 1915 were: William Dean Howells, Henry James, Henry Adams, Theodore Roosevelt, John Singer Sargent, Daniel Chester French, John Burroughs, James Ford Rhodes, Horatio William Parker, William Milligan Sloane, Robert Underwood Johnson, George Washington Cable, Andrew Dickson White, Henry van Dyke, William Crary Brownell, Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, Woodrow Wilson, Arthur Twining Hadley, Henry Cabot Lodge, Edwin Howland Blashfield, Thomas Hastings, Brander Matthews, Thomas Nelson Page, Elihu Vedder, George Edward Woodberry, Kenyon Cox, George Whitefield Chadwick, Abbott Henderson Thayer, Henry Mills Alden, George deForest Brush, William Rutherford Mead, Bliss Perry, Abbott Lawrence Lowell, Nicholas Murray Butler, Paul Wayland Bartlett, Owen Wister, Herbert Adams, Augustus Thomas, Timothy Cole, Cass Gilbert, William Roscoe Thayer, Robert Grant, Frederick MacMonnies, Julian Alden Weir, William Gillette and Paul Elmer More.