Fortean Society

Fortean Society

TYPELiterary/anomaly research society

FOUNDED1931

FOUNDERSFriends and admirers of Charles Fort; first president Theodore Dreiser

LOCATIONNew York City, USA

KNOWN FORPromoting Charles Fort's work; publishing The Fortean Society Magazine / Doubt

STATUSDefunct (1959)

The Fortean Society was a New York City-based literary and anomaly-research society, founded in 1931 to promote the work and ideas of writer Charles Fort. It was the first organisation to formalise what would become the broader Fortean tradition, though Fort himself was famously reluctant to endorse it during his own lifetime — see Charles Fort § Fort's actual position.

Founding and membership

The Society was founded at a meeting held in Fort's own New York apartment, with novelist Theodore Dreiser — a close friend of Fort's since 1905, and instrumental in getting his first book published — serving as its first president. Founding members included writer and editor Tiffany Thayer, novelist Booth Tarkington, screenwriter Ben Hecht, critic Alexander Woollcott, and writer Dorothy Parker, drawing substantially from New York's literary scene of the period. Hecht, an early and enthusiastic admirer, had previously declared himself "the first disciple of Charles Fort" in a review of The Book of the Damned.

Publications

The Society published a journal, initially titled The Fortean Society Magazine and later renamed Doubt, which began publication in September 1937. The journal published Fort's own notes alongside contributions from other members, though under Thayer's editorship it also became a frequent outlet for his own political views, unrelated to Fort's original material.

Leadership under Thayer and dissolution

Following Fort's death in 1932, Tiffany Thayer took over leadership of the Society and continued to edit its journal. The Fortean Society effectively ceased activity following Thayer's own death in 1959. Much of the Society's surviving material, alongside contributions from Fort, Dreiser and Hecht, was later incorporated into the International Fortean Organization (INFO); the bulk of Fort's own personal notes, however, had already been donated separately to the New York Public Library as a standalone collection.

ORGANISATION ASSESSMENT

SCOPE

New York City-based, with a national membership drawn from the American literary scene of the 1930s–1950s

METHODOLOGY

Promotion and publication of Charles Fort's work and similar anomaly reports; combined genuine Fortean material with unrelated editorial commentary under Thayer

KEY MEMBERS

Charles Fort (namesake, not himself a formal member); Theodore Dreiser (first president); Tiffany Thayer (later leader and editor); Ben Hecht; Booth Tarkington; Alexander Woollcott; Dorothy Parker

NOTABLE CASE

N/A — a literary/promotional society rather than an investigative body

SUCCEEDED BY

International Fortean Organization (INFO), in part; the broader ongoing Fortean tradition more generally, including Fortean Times

CURRENT STATUS

Defunct since 1959

LEGACY

The Fortean Society was the first formal organisation built around Charles Fort's work, and — despite Fort's own reluctance to endorse it — established the template later successor publications and societies would follow: a mix of genuine sceptical anomaly-collecting alongside the personal enthusiasms of whoever happened to be running it at the time.

See also

• Charles Fort
• Forteana

External links

• Wikipedia — Fortean Society