Gatherings to seek solutions to the climate crisis. A magazine that publishes new work by Wisconsin writers, and juried exhibits that showcase Wisconsin’s visual artists. Talks and events exploring everything from the American Dream to space farming, geology, and epidemiology. There’s a reason it’s hard to write a soundbite that describes today’s Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters. And yet all of its diverse initiatives center on a simple idea: sharing the work of Wisconsin’s intellectuals, creatives, and scientists to enlighten, inspire, and serve the citizens of the state.
Most long-lived public institutions can attribute their success to a simple, clear mission within a defined field, like educating students, preserving art, or celebrating heritage. The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters is different. Its original mission, as expressed by John Wesley Hoyt in 1870, is incredibly broad and open to interpretation: “[To] awaken a scientific spirit in all enquiring minds[,]… lead to a wider diffusion of useful knowledge… [and] contribute to the social progress of the State.”1 The Academy was chartered by the state, but it hasn’t received funding from the state since 1960. Its founders and most celebrated members are better known for their affiliations with universities and other public institutions than their connection to the Academy. And that old-fashioned mouthful of a name doesn’t help. So, what has kept the Wisconsin Academy going for 152 years?
The Academy’s resilience stems from two qualities that nearly everyone connected with it has in common, from the bearded scholars of 1870 to today’s nonprofit board and staff: a stubborn idealism and a sincere desire to be of service. Through the ebb and flow of cultural change, leadership transitions, and uncertain funding, the Academy has always centered intellectual independence, nonpartisanship, and a science-based approach to public policy. Over the decades, it has also radically broadened its base of expertise, inviting voices from outside academia to share their art, writing, and perspectives on critical issues. The broad mission articulated by Hoyt—to disseminate useful knowledge and contribute to social progress—has been a gift. It has given the Academy freedom to shift direction in response to emerging issues and new perspectives, always seeking ways to keep Wisconsin moving forward.
Scientists and Scholars Gather
From their first meeting, the Academy’s founders were eager to develop an intellectual community and create a forum for Wisconsin’s educated class to present and publish original research. The February 1870 “Convention to Organize” was called by educator and statesman John Wesley Hoyt and supported by a large group of prominent individuals, among them naturalists Increase Lapham and Philo Romayne Hoy, geologist Thomas Chamberlin, founder of J. I. Case Company Jerome Case, and historian Lyman Draper.2 In an enthusiastic notice, a Milwaukee Sentinel reporter covering the convention wrote: “This is a very worthy movement, and, from the number of distinguished gentlemen interested in it, will hardly fail in placing Wisconsin foremost in another praiseworthy public enterprise.”3
Women’s rights were the subject of hot debate at the time. While Hoyt felt strongly about the importance of including women in the Academy, there was great concern among some of the founders that women’s membership could jeopardize the nascent organization’s charter. When the first women members were finally elected six years later, Hoy marked the occasion with the hopeful declaration that “sciences and letters have neither country, color, or Hoyt did lobby successfully for Catholics to join in 1870, which he later recalled as a significant victory. Not surprisingly, there is no record of any discussion about electing Jewish or Black or Indigenous people as Academy members. Membership lists record only names, so it is not easy to pinpoint when these barriers were broken, but the limited photographic evidence from early meetings suggests it was not until well into the twentieth century.
