International Scientific Association

The International Scientific Association, originally called the Science Correspondence Club, was founded in 1928 with a focus on science and less so, science fiction. 
== History ==
=== Creation and Rise ===
A science fan club founded by Aubrey Clements, in Alabama; another similar club was founded a month later in Chicago by Walter Dennis, Paul McDermott and Sydney Gerson. In 1929, under the organization of a member of Clements' club, Raymond A. Palmer, the two clubs merged their memberships (25 from Alabama and 24 from Chicago), forming the SCC. Another club, the Bay State Science Club of Boston founded by Richard Leary in 1928, later joined as well. In May 1931, it was announced in Astounding Stories that the club's name had been changed to the International Scientific Association. The club produced what has been named as the "first" fanzine (the club's emphasis on science-fact means this claim is disputed), The Comet (first published in May 1930)"Recollections on the Origins of Science Fiction Fandom 1917 to 1948" by Aubrey MacDermott (1987), eFanzines.com. 
According to Fancyclopedia 1, published in 1944, the ISA: 
In his Recollections on the Origins of Science Fiction Fandom 1917 to 1948, one of the original members, Aubrey MacDermott, describes how things (actually) came about:
=== Fall and Disbanding ===
Near the end of 1935, according to Sam Moskowitz's The Immortal Storm, then-president Raymond A. Palmer transferred leadership to William S. Sykora, head of the International Cosmos Science Club. The ICSC absorbed the ISA, taking on its name, membership, history and prestige, as well as perpetuating the perception that Sykora started the group. 
At this stage, according to Moskowitz (who was Donald A. Wollheim's sworn enemy at the time he began writing The Immortal Storm), Sykora teamed up with Wollheim and John B. Michel to leverage the ISA's power against the Science Fiction League, which had expelled all three of them after Wollheim had spread propaganda accusing the SFL of being corporatized. While Michel and Sykora hadn't actually been involved, their expulsion drove them firmly into Wollheim's camp.Moskowitz, Sam. The Immortal Storm. 1954. Hyperion Press, 1974, pp. 48-50.Wollheim, letter in Voice of the Imagi-Nation issue 4 pg. 11 (November 1939): "I should like to say here and now that the so-called Wollheim-everybody else feuds are for the most part misnamed and based upon superficial misunderstandings. The correct terms for those feuds should be Sykora-Clark, Sykora-Kirshenblit, Sykora-Schwartz and not mine. I did achieve some prominence in each because as a friend of Sykora I naturally took his side and since I was more in the fan world's eye, I was mistaken for the chief antagonist. But it was always Sykora who first engineered these squalls and carried them on."
After the Science Fiction League was more or less destroyed, Sykora resigned as head of the ISA in 1937. Jack Speer's Fancyclopedia (1944) reports that he needed to focus on his college workload, and was also protesting the ISA's shift towards science fiction for science fiction's sake, and away from steering SF fans into practical scientific careers. Wollheim, now the only active officer, found the club in such poor condition that he obtained a consensus from the other members to dissolve it.ISA article on Fancyclopedia. Text quoted from Jack Speer's Fancyclopedia I (1944).
Sykora returned in 1938 to argue that the club had never been officially dissolved because only New York members had been polled, but he wasn't able to gain enough to support to restore it. His failed motion was presented at the First National Science Fiction Convention. By this time the Queens Science Fiction League had split apart, and the Futurians vs. New Fandom feud was in full swing.
The Futurians suspected Sykora would try to resurrect the ISA once again at the first Worldcon in 1939. That does not appear to have happened. Nor was the ISA resurrected by anyone else. 
== Notable Fanworks ==
=== Zines ===
* The Comet (aka Cosmology) - 1930-1933
* International Observer of Science and Science Fiction (1934-1937)
=== Conventions ===
* First Eastern States Science Fiction Convention (Philadelphia, 1936)
* Second Eastern States Science Fiction Convention (New York (1937)
== References ==
Category:1928 Fan Clubs
Category:1920s Fan Clubs
Category:1930s Fan Clubs
Category:Science Fiction Fan Clubs