Abstract

Historians of science do not generally indulge in much mythologizing about the founders and prominent figures in our discipline's history. Nevertheless, the received history of the field elides a great deal of the work done on behalf of the Society and its publications because it was tedious, contentious, done in service to discarded aims, performed by underpaid or unacknowledged professional staff, or simply unglamorous. A brief tour through the Society's voluminous if poorly organized archives serves as a corrective.