The history of linguistics in the United States is chronicled from the founding of the American Philosophical Society in 1769 to the emergence of the American Linguistic Society in 1924. An introductory chapter outlines the goals of linguistic historiography and the rationalizations behind the definitions of the periods examined here. Subsequent chapters discuss events, writings, and trends in these periods: 1769 through 1815, when a political conception of language prevailed in colonial and post-colonial America; 1815 to 1842, a period of expansion and early attention to American Indian languages; 1842 to 1894, the formal institutionalization of American linguistics, from the founding of the American Oriental Society and American Ethnological Society to the death of Dwight Whitney, who was actively involved in the organization of a number of linguistics-related societies; 1875 to 1900, during which English studies diverged from those of the "science of language"; and 1900 to 1924, the period of Leonard Bloomfield's early career. Contents are indexed. Contains 297 references. (MSE)