On November 27, the organizing meeting of the American Statistical Association was held at the American Education Society, in Boston, MA. Its purpose, as stated in its first constitution, was to "collect, preserve, and diffuse statistical information in the different departments of human knowledge." Originally called the American Statistical Society, the organization's name was changed to the American Statistical Association at its first annual meeting, held in Boston on February 5, 1840. The five men present at the organizing meeting in 1839 were William Cogswell, Richard Fletcher, John Dix Fisher, Oliver Peabody, and Lemuel Shattuck. They were graduates of Brown, Dartmouth, and Harvard universities and were trained in law, medicine, theology, literature and education. Although Fletcher was elected as the first president (1839-1845), he appears to have been little more than a figurehead. Lemuel Shattuck, the first secretary, was the true leader in founding the Association.

Type of event: Society or Association

Country: United States

Region: Canada and the United States