THE AMERICAN POLAR SOCIETY —
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

by Raimund E. Goerler and Lynn Lay
(Byrd Polar Research Center, The Ohio State University)

Editor’s Note: This article, which ran in the Fall-Winter 2003 and Spring-Summer 2004 issue of The Polar Times, is adapted from a paper of the same title in Juli Braund-Allen and Cathie Innes-Taylor, editors, Creativity, Lighting the Poles: Collaborative Solutions to Common Problems: Proceedings of the 16th Polar Libraries Colloquy (Anchorage: University of Alaska Anchorage Press, 1997), pp. 40-45. This article has been reprinted with permission.

PART ONE

Founded in 1935, the American Polar Society (APS) developed from popular interest in the events of exploration and discovery in polar regions. During its nearly seven decades, the Society has served as a clearinghouse of information through its publication The Polar Times, when for many years there was no central source of information to guide polar scientists and explorers. At the same time, the Society has benefited from and has stimulated popular interest in the polar regions.

August Howard and the Origins of the American Polar Society

The mid-1920s were a particularly exciting time for polar exploration, particularly as airplanes were proving their usefulness in the field. In 1925, Roald Amundsen and Lincoln Ellsworth attempted to use airplanes to reach the North Pole, but failed. A year later, Richard Byrd claimed credit as the first to fly over the North Pole. Two years later, Byrd organized an expedition to Antarctica that would culminate in a flight over the South Pole. Before Byrd could reach the South Pole, Sir Hubert Wilkins, an Australian who was financed by American publisher William Randolph Hearst, became the first to fly in Antarctica in 1928.

August Howard was born "August Horowitz" on January 2, 1910, but he changed his name in the early 1940s. The son of a tailor and Russian immigrant, he grew up fascinated by Byrd and the romance and adventure of the North Pole flight. Polar exploration and discovery became the avocation of his life, even as it was the vocation of his hero, Byrd. Howard's other interest was in the Boy Scouts. In 1928, after years of pleasure in scouting, he became an employee of the National Council of Boy Scouts of America, which would become his life-long career.

Howard's interests in polar exploration, Byrd, scouting all came together in 1928, when Byrd and the Boy Scouts conducted a national campaign to select a scout to accompany Byrd on his first expedition to Antarctica. Howard and the successful applicant, Eagle Scout/Sea Scout Paul Siple, became close friends.