Chapter 3 Establishment, \(1926-1932\)
This chapter describes activities in the Philadelphia Section from the time of the organizational meeting in \(1926\) to the annual meeting in \(1932\text{.}\) We refer to this as the “period of establishment” because the energy that was initially expended to organize the section in \(1926\) was directed over the next six years to establish it as a thriving organization whose continuity and vitality were assured. Over this period, the section benefited from the emergence of a new set of energetic leaders who sustained it well into the 1930s, thus guaranteeing the permanence of its activities and the success of future endeavors. We profile several of the new leaders and describe their sectional activities.
This chapter also examines the genesis of many of the traditions that now define the section, including the governance structure and the format of annual meetings. Our analysis of the five meetings that took place from \(1928\) to \(1932\) serves as a model for subsequent analyses of other periods in the section’s history.
The success of any professional organization depends not only on its leadership but also on the vitality of its membership, whom Arnold Dresden called the “rank and file”. This chapter confirms such a paradigm by providing brief accounts of the lives and contributions of several MAA 1 members who graced the Philadelphia Section with a diversity of mathematical interests, abilities, and contributions.
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