Our Common Purpose: Democratic Citizenship at America’s 250th Anniversary

As the United States marks its 250th anniversary this year, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences is not far behind. The Academy was founded in 1780, before the end of the Revolutionary War, by many of the same people who launched and prosecuted that war: John Hancock, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and others. John Adams was the first president of the Academy. These English subjects turned American revolutionaries recognized that they were embarking on something novel in the history of the world: establishing a self-governing society with the promise that its citizens would be free and equal. To advance this political experiment, they created the Academy, an organization to convene members of “the learned professions,” as those with professional expertise were called at the time. The charge assigned to this membership: “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.”