Mary Beth Norton, the Mary Donlon Professor of American History, was elected to the American Philosophical Society April 24. An expert on early America, she is completing the last of a three-volume project that examines the interplay of gender, society and politics in America from the beginnings of settlement to approximately 1800.

Cornell faculty members who have previously been elected to the society include M.H. Abrams, the Class of 1916 Professor of English Emeritus; Liberty H. Bailey, dean of Cornell's agriculture college from 1903 to 1913; Hans A. Bethe, professor emeritus of physics; Eric A. Blackall, the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of German Literature; Jonathan Culler, the Class of 1916 Professor of English and Comparative Literature; and last year, Benedict Anderson, the Aaron L. Binenkorb Professor Emeritus of International Studies, Government and Asian Studies, and Peter Katzenstein, the Walter S. Carpenter Jr. Professor of International Studies .

Other new members elected include Glenn D. Lowry, director of the Museum of Modern Art, and Leon Botstein, president of Bard College and conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra.

The American Philosophical Society, based in Philadelphia, is the oldest learned society in the United States, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743 for "promoting useful knowledge." The society supports research, discovery and education through grants and fellowships, lectures, publications, prizes and exhibitions. Its membership has included George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, John James Audubon, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, Louis Pasteur, Albert Einstein and Robert Frost. Since 1900, more than 260 members have received the Nobel Prize.