Abstract

During the 1960s, when departments of English had little knowledge of or regard for “rhetoric,” a small community of “autodidacts,” including Richard Young, Ross Winterowd, Edward P. J. Corbett, James Kinneavy, and Richard Ohmann, gathered to foster rhetorical knowledge. The group was joined by other scholars in academic fields, such as speech communications, philosophy, and linguistics (including Donald C. Bryan and George Yoos), similarly interested in rhetorical studies. Having grown organically and informally—with an interdisciplinary interest—the Rhetoric Society of America (RSA) currently has approximately 1,500 members. The organization held its first, formal meeting at the 1968 Conference on College Composition and Communication in Minneapolis, the year it began publishing its Rhetoric Society Newsletter. In 1975, the Newsletter became the academic journal, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, and in 1984, the Society held its first RSA conference. This essay, drawing on anecdotal accounts, details the history of the organization’s origins and growth.