History of the

Eastern States Archeological Federation

John Reid and Wm Jack Hranicky

 1935 – 1991

 And

1991 – 2003

John Reid, Ron Thomas, and Jack Hranicky

When asked to write the history of the Eastern States Archeological Federation (ESAF), we were not sure where to start. After reading the Bulletins and small archives available, we found a lot-of-history and can only present highlights.  At the end of the report, there is a list of the names of officers and the dates that they served.

ESAF’s beginnings were auspicious.  In May 1933, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania archeological societies met in Trenton, New Jersey to discuss an interstate cooperation.  They agreed to continue meeting yearly under the name “Northeastern States Conference and Archaeological Societies.”  It was found that by February of 1934 at the Philadelphia meetings that a great number of other state societies were interested in becoming involved in the conference.

One year later, on February 23, 1935, the constitution of the Eastern States Archeological Federation was adopted at Rochester, New York.  There were seven states represented at this meeting.  The charter societies were from Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

The history of the next few years is limited.  There is mention of yearly meetings until 1943 and 1944, when only the executive committee met.  This was because of wartime travel restrictions.  In 1941 the first Bulletin was published.  It consisted of three pages with reports from 13 member societies.  The six new members were from Georgia, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia.

Bulletin Number 2 was printed in February 1944.  It contained an interesting article entitled “’A’ Ration Books and Archaeology” by Frederick Johnson.  In this article, Johnson dealt with doing analysis with the societies’ backlog of material and doing library and map surveys because of gas shortages.  This sounded timely for 1977 with the then current price of gasoline.

A great number of societies suspended meetings during the war because of the draft and gasoline rationing.

In 1936 the Federation established a project to compile an archeological bibliography for the eastern United States.  One thousand, three hundred and seventy-three titles were published in 1939 under the direction of Dr. Cornelius Osgood.  A number of states were encouraged to do local bibliographies at that time, and they were added to a second publication in 1948 (Research Publication No. One, edited by Irving Rouse and John M. Goggin).  This published research publication was followed by a second one, “An Anthropological Bibliography of the Eastern Seaboard, Volume II,” in 1963 under the editorship of Alfred I. Guthe and Patricia B. Kelly.

The first annual meeting after the war was held in November 1945 in Massachusetts.  In 1948 the membership was increased by one when the Florida Anthropological Society joined with a membership of 30 people.  The following year (1949) the New Hampshire Archaeological Society requested membership and was accepted.

In the early 1950’s, there is some confusion as to membership in the Federation.  On the cover of the Bulletins only twelve societies are shown.  Societies left off the cover of Bulletin Number 9, 1950 were those from Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts and Vermont.  There was no reason given in the Bulletin and, in fact, Massachusetts was represented in the society report section.

In 1955 Bulletin Number 14 membership listing indicated a jump from twelve to sixteen societies.  The members added at that time were Georgia, Maryland and Ontario as well as Massachusetts.  This was an all time high for membership and only Vermont and South Carolina were not represented from the Atlantic watershed at that time.

In that same Bulletin, President C. A. Weslager wrote a brief history of the Federation.  In this, he gave a list of officers from the beginning of ESAF, which we have updated.  He also talked of how each society should send five voting members to deliberate all business matters at the annual meetings, plus one elected person, who became a Vice President of the Federation and, along with elected four officers, forms the nucleus of the Executive Board. This nucleus then elects five staff directors in charge of Editorial, Research, Exhibits, Archeological Education and Membership.  These people become ex officio members of the Board and transact the business of the Federation.

In 1956 three new member societies joined the Federation, the states of Alabama and Michigan and the Province of Quebec.  This brought the total membership of ESAF to nineteen.

In October 1960 the annual meetings were moved for the first time outside of the United States to Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  This meeting marked the tenth year of the Ontario Archaeological Society and the twenty-fifth year of the Eastern States Archeological Federation.  ESAF returned to Ontario for its 1988 Annual Meeting; unfortunately, the Ontario society was no longer an ESAF member.  To date, John Reid is the only ESAF president who resided outside the U.S.

Stepping back to 1962 for a moment, Tennessee was welcomed as the twentieth state and province to become a member of the Federation.  At the 1964 meeting, there was a tribute paid to Kathryn B. Greywacz for her work and devotion to the Federation for 31 years as Corresponding Secretary.

At the 1965 meetings, after a lengthy discussion, two more societies were made members.  The reason for the discussion was that the states of Maine and Maryland were already represented in the Federation; however, when second societies from each of thee states applied for admission, they were accepted.  These new members brought the total membership to twenty-three societies.  In 1968 three more societies entered the Federation.  They were Mississippi, Vermont and South Carolina.  In 1969 a member from Ohio joined, and in 1972 the Kentucky Archaeological Association was admitted to increase the membership to an all time high of twenty-seven.

In 1973 the first number of “Archaeology of Eastern North America” was published.  It received critical acclaim and set a high publication standard for the Federation.  Called AENA for short, it was edited by Louis Brennan.  To date, nineteen volumes have been published.

The Quebec society became inactive in 1973 and was dropped from membership.  In 1975, membership changed again with Connecticut adding a society and Maryland dropping one.  The Virgin Islands Archaeological Society then applied for membership.  Then in 1976 the two Connecticut organizations joined forces as one society.  In 1977, the Ontario and Florida groups dropped their memberships in ESAF.

A few other important developments took place in 1976.  First, a business office was organized with a special position of Business Manager to handle the day-to-day affairs of the Federation.  This office was located at the Island Field Archaeological Museum and Research Center in Delaware.  Another important development was the creation of individual memberships and institutional memberships in ESAF.  Also, there was the establishment of a quarterly newsletter which was distributed to the individual membership.  This newsletter was short lived.

Finally, another bibliography was printed in 1977.  It covered the years 1959-1976.  It contained approximately nine thousand titles.

During the 1980s, many ESAF member societies started major activities, such as amateur certification, fieldschools for training members, amateur and professional awards for outstanding achievements, special lectures named after someone in the society, displays at state fairs, increased special publications and lately, archeology week.

In 1983, ESAF celebrated its 50th anniversary in Salem, Massachusetts.  This meeting had the largest attendance (approximately 500) of any meeting.  It brought together many long-time ESAF participants and past officers.

In 1985, Wm Jack Hranicky organized a call-in computer network, ASVNET/ESAFNET, which allowed anyone to call in and obtain current events in archaeology. ESAF teamed with the Archeological Society of Virginia to run the network.

This is briefly a review of the history of the Federation. What began in 1933 as a meeting of four states has developed into a thriving Federation of twenty-four member societies and numerous institutional and individual members.  Annual meetings are held in various states hosted by local societies, and as can be seen in the figures at the end of this paper, attendance at these meetings is increasing steadily.  The publications of the Federation have kept pace with the expansion of ESAF; yearly bulletins describing the annual meetings have continued; bibliographies have been published throughout the course of the history of the Federation (the most recent bibliography promises to be the most comprehensive to date); and, a journal has been established to publish scholarly articles written by ESAF members.

The early ESAF years provided the stable foundation for the evolution of the Federation into a greater role in archeology.  It brought together “anyone” who was interested in American archeology.  And, as a result, ESAF has always been considered the world’s largest organization of both amateur and professional archeologists.

Photographs from yesteryears...485ple doing various jobs and activities that have made ESAF what it is today.
HD/Users/gregoryl/Desktop/broyles.jpg" width="226" height="322"> rial">Bettey Broyles (Treasurer 1969-1975)	Ripley Bullen (Florida Meeting Host)
Fred Kinsey (President 1975-77)	Jack Hranicky (Bulletin Editor 1986-93)				Bill Mayer-Oakes (Vice President 1956-58)
Marjorie Gay (Corresponding Secretary 1974-75)	Joffre Coe (President 1961-65)
Herb Kraft (President 1983-85) and Ron Thomas (President 1977-79)					Howard MacCord (President 1969-71)
Maruice Robbins (President 1973-75)			Bill Ritchie (President 1951-54)
Clifford Lefferts (1970s) Delaware Amateur		Dick Regensburg - Active ESAFer from New Jersey
Roger Moellar (ESAF Business Manager) and Louis Brennan.			Vivian Marshall (1970s) Presenting Pennsylvania's State Report
James Griffin (Banquet Speaker)			Louis Brennan (AENA Editor 1971-1982)
This photograph gallery represents a sample of people who have been involved in ESAF. Membership and volunteer support is open to anyone who wants to be active in eastern archaeology. Join and participate today.

	Old ESAF Program
	1967 ESAF Bulletin
	ESAF Meeting Notice
	ESAF Newsletter
	Draft Program.