Founders of the Negro Society for Historical Research were sociologist E. Franklin Frazier (1894–1963), historian George Washington Williams (1849–1991), journalist John Edward Bruce (1856–1924), and library curator and bibliophile Arthur Alphonso Schomburg (1874–1938). The organization was founded in Yonkers, New York, on April 8, 1911, at the same time that other black organizations began to preempt some of the American Negro Academy’s goals. According to its constitution, the NSHR’s purpose was “to instruct the race and to inspire love and veneration for its men and women of mark.” Members committed themselves to collect data, pamphlets, and books that related to the history and achievements of the race, to build a circulating library for its members, and to publish works by black people and their friends that supported the upward struggle of the race. While there were never formal ties between the NSHR and the American Negro Academy, some members belonged to both organizations and “stimulated feelings of connectedness and mutual interest.”