Records of the Past. Volume 1.

Washington D.C.: Records of the Past Exploration Society, 1901. First edition. Large octavo (7 1/4 x 10 3/4 inches). [x], 382, [4, index] pp. including numerous full page and inter-textual photographic illustrations. Publisher's red cloth with gilt spine lettering and device, front cover with gilt frame iside of which are the title in gilt as well as the Society's device, all edges gilt. Light wear to extremities but a very good and clean copy."The Records of the Past Exploration Society had the credentials to make a noticeable impact on the American archaeological scene. In 1900 the Reverend Henry Mason Baum, the long-time editor of the American Church Review and an amateur archaeologist who excavated biblical sites in the Middle East, founded the organization. Its membership included institutional professionals degreed academics, respected church leaders like Baum, and other interested people of means, most with some field experience in archaeology. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., Records of the Past avidly worked for preservation.The Records of the Past journal was one of its most successful means of attracting attention. Under Baum's experienced tutelage, it acquired a good reputation among professionals and interested laypeople. Its authors included eminent archaeologists and institutional professionals such as Dr. Arthur Stoddard Cooley of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Prof. William C. Mills, the curator of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, and Albert T. Clay, the assistant curator of Babylonian antiquities at the University of Pennsylvania. These men were acknowledged experts, and their experience in European, Egyptian, and Babylonian archaeology lent considerable status to the organization" (Rothman, America's National Monuments)