Founded on 29 December 1989 at an inaugural meeting in Washington, D.C., The Ralph Waldo Emerson Society, Inc. is dedicated to fostering scholarship on and appreciation of the life and writings of one of America's greatest authors. With about 200 members in eleven countries, it is a tax-exempt, non-profit organization incorporated in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Though his critical reputation has risen and fallen, especially in academia,during the years since his death, Emerson continues to be a national icon as a representative American voice. Called the Sage of Concord and the "wisest American" by admirers, he inspired Thoreau, Alcott, Whitman, and many later writers with his challenge to be self-reliant and with his innovative style, and countless readers from other walks of life have turned to him for consolation, reassurance, and uplift. Hawthorne and Melville, however, in their fiction quarreled with his vision, and many critics have reviled what they consider his easy optimism and blindness to social and cosmic evil. To this day, readers are drawn to Emerson,whether to find inspiration or to quarrel, as a benchmark of personal and national character, and his reputation has never been higher.

Primarily an educational and literary organization, the Emerson Society is formally organized with a constitution and bylaws. Officers are a president, president-elect, secretary, and treasurer. An advisory board (which serves also as an editorial board) consists of the newsletter editor, the immediate past-president, six elected members, and an ex officio member named by and representing the Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association. A program chair, named by the advisory board, coordinates the society's conference offerings. The society holds an annual meeting at a site selected during the previous year's meeting; historically, this meeting has been held during the annual conference of the American Literature Association.

The society's official publication is Emerson Society Papers (ESP), a newsletter published each fall and spring. ESP features brief scholarly articles, book reviews, notes and queries, an annual Emerson bibliography, abstracts of conference papers, and, in the regular column "Prospects," announcements about conferences and meetings; updates on editions, publications, and research; and news of Emerson scholars. Cited in the annual MLA Bibliography and American Literary Scholarship, ESP has published articles on such topics as Emerson in Russia, preserving historic Walden Woods, Emerson's poems "Boston" and "Hamatreya," echoes of Seneca in the essay "Circles," Emerson on Thoreau as "Napoleon," the authorship of an early English sketch of Emerson, reformer Adin Ballou, Emerson's "pedagogical wisdom," Emerson at West Point, John Muir, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, and Emerson in music, as well as documentary discoveries relating to Ezra Stiles Gannett's address at Emerson's ordination, English reception of Nature, Boston newspaper accounts of "the New Bedford affair," Emerson and Brook Farm, newspaper reviews of Emerson's writings, a new Emerson letter relating to the North American Review, and Emerson in old age.

Since 1990, the Emerson Society annually has presented two panels at the American Literature Association conference. Themes of these sessions, aimed at professional scholars, have included Emerson's relations to nature, to biography, to women, to clubs, and to reform; a sesquicentennial celebration of Theodore Parker; teaching Emerson; Emerson's social vision; a sesquicentennial perspective on Emerson in 1844; Emerson and his circle; Emerson's later work; Emerson as lecturer and as correspondent; and recent critical approaches to Emerson. Programs designed for a wider audience of Emerson admirers are presented each July in Concord in conjunction with the Thoreau Society Annual Gathering. Programs in Concord have included "Emerson and Concord: A Sense of Place"; "Emerson and Women"; a presentation on the art of biography by acclaimed Emerson and Thoreau biographer Robert D. Richardson, Jr.; a panel of biographers of Transcendental women; a wide-ranging assessment of "Emerson: Influences and Resonances"; and "Re-Forming Emerson," an exploration of Emerson's career in reform and its influence.

The Emerson Society promotes scholarship and Emerson's legacy in several ways. It established a Distinguished Achievement Award in 1993 to recognize scholars who have made important contributions to Emerson studies. It provided Columbia University Press with a subvention toward preparation of a cumulative index to volumes 7-10 of The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1990-95), edited by Eleanor M. Tilton. It has endorsed efforts of the Walden Woods Project to preserve historic sites associated with the Concord writers. And it has established a research collection, housed at the Thoreau Institute in Lincoln, Massachusetts; started with gifts of books and other items from renowned Emerson scholars Ralph H. Orth and Merton M. Sealts, Jr., these archives include monographs, editions, offprints, maps, and Emerson Society business records as well as handbooks, notes, and other tools used by scholars in preparing various editions of works by Emerson. "Emerson in 2003," chaired by Ronald A. Bosco and Joel Myerson and generously supported by the Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association, was a major bicentennial celebration of Emerson's birth. It included a three-day conference at the Massachusetts Historical Society, a forthcoming book based upon the conference, exhibits at the Houghton Library and the Concord Free Public Library, and presentations throughout the year. In 2004, to continue the spirit of the bicentennial, the Emerson Society established a series of annual financial awards that support scholarly research, graduate student presentations, pedagogical and community projects, and other work that furthers appreciation of Emerson. The first awards were made in 2005. In July 2006 the Society will co-sponsor "Transatlanticism in American Literature: Emerson, Hawthorne, and Poe," an international conference at the Rothermere American Institute and St. Catherine's College, Oxford University.

Besides receiving ESP, members are eligible to serve as book reviewers and conference panelists. Other benefits include a discount on subscriptions to ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance, flyers offering discounts on new books about Emerson and his circle, the ability to subscribe to the society's Listserv on the Internet, and opportunities to purchase official Emerson Society shirts. To join the Ralph Waldo Emerson Society, send a check for $10 (U.S. dollars only) payable to "The Emerson Society" to Robert D. Habich, Emerson Society Secretary/Treasurer, Dept. of English, Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306.