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The Fortean Society was started in the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 in 1931 by Tiffany Thayer
Tiffany Thayer

Tiffany Ellsworth Thayer was an United States actor, author and founder of the Fortean Society.Born in Freeport, Illinois, Thayer quit school at age 15 and worked as an actor, reporter, and used-book clerk in Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland....
 in order to promote the ideas of American writer Charles Fort
Charles Fort

Charles Hoy Fort was an United States writer and researcher into anomaly .Jerome Clark writes that Fort was "essentially a Satire hugely skeptical of human beings ? especially scientists ? claims to ultimate knowledge"....
. The Fortean Society was primarily based in New York City. Its first president was Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Dreiser

Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist. He pioneered the naturalism school and is known for portraying characters whose value lies not in their moral code, but in their persistence against all obstacles, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice and agency ....
, an old friend of Charles Fort, who had helped to get his work published. Founding members of The Fortean Society included Booth Tarkington
Booth Tarkington

Newton Booth Tarkington was an United States novelist and dramatist best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams ....
, Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht

Ben Hecht , , was an United States screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of the most entertaining screenplays or p...
, Alexander Woolcott (and many of NYC's literati such as Dorothy Parker), and Baltimore writer H. L. Mencken
H. L. Mencken

Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken , was an United States journalist, essayist, magazine editing, satire, acerbic Social criticism of American American way and Culture of the United States, and a student of American English....
.

The Fortean Society Magazine (also called Doubt) was published regularly until Thayer's death in Nantucket, Massachusetts
Nantucket, Massachusetts

Nantucket is an island 30 miles south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in the United States. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck Island and Muskeget, it constitutes the New England town of Nantucket, Massachusetts, and the coterminous Nantucket County, which are consolidated....
 in 1959, when the society went on hiatus and the magazine came to an end.






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The Fortean Society was started in the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 in 1931 by Tiffany Thayer
Tiffany Thayer

Tiffany Ellsworth Thayer was an United States actor, author and founder of the Fortean Society.Born in Freeport, Illinois, Thayer quit school at age 15 and worked as an actor, reporter, and used-book clerk in Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland....
 in order to promote the ideas of American writer Charles Fort
Charles Fort

Charles Hoy Fort was an United States writer and researcher into anomaly .Jerome Clark writes that Fort was "essentially a Satire hugely skeptical of human beings ? especially scientists ? claims to ultimate knowledge"....
. The Fortean Society was primarily based in New York City. Its first president was Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Dreiser

Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist. He pioneered the naturalism school and is known for portraying characters whose value lies not in their moral code, but in their persistence against all obstacles, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice and agency ....
, an old friend of Charles Fort, who had helped to get his work published. Founding members of The Fortean Society included Booth Tarkington
Booth Tarkington

Newton Booth Tarkington was an United States novelist and dramatist best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams ....
, Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht

Ben Hecht , , was an United States screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of the most entertaining screenplays or p...
, Alexander Woolcott (and many of NYC's literati such as Dorothy Parker), and Baltimore writer H. L. Mencken
H. L. Mencken

Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken , was an United States journalist, essayist, magazine editing, satire, acerbic Social criticism of American American way and Culture of the United States, and a student of American English....
.

The Fortean Society Magazine (also called Doubt) was published regularly until Thayer's death in Nantucket, Massachusetts
Nantucket, Massachusetts

Nantucket is an island 30 miles south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in the United States. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck Island and Muskeget, it constitutes the New England town of Nantucket, Massachusetts, and the coterminous Nantucket County, which are consolidated....
 in 1959, when the society went on hiatus and the magazine came to an end. Writers Paul and Ron Willis, publishers of "Anubis", acquired most of the original Fortean Society material and revived The Fortean Society as the International Fortean Organization
International Fortean Organization

The International Fortean Organization is a network of professional Fortean researchers and writers. John Keel, author and parapsychologist, in both his writings and at his appearances at INFO's FortFest, says "the International Fortean Organization carries on Charles Fort's name as successor to the Fortean Society." Keel, Colin Wilson and Jo...
 (INFO
Info

Info is a common shortening of information.It may also refer to:* .info, a generic top-level domain*...
) in 1961. INFO continues to this day and went on to incorporate in 1965, publish a widely respected magazine "The INFO Journal: Science and the Unknown" for over 35 years and created the first conference dedicated to the work and spirit of Charles Fort, the annual FortFest.

The original magazine Doubt and society were not connected to the present-day magazine Fortean Times
Fortean Times

Fortean Times - "The World of Strange Phenomena" - is a United Kingdom monthly magazine devoted to the Anomaly popularised by Charles Fort....
 created by a British fortean and long-time correspondent to Paul Willis, Bob Rickard, who encouraged Willis to publish. Much of the Fortean Society material including material from Fort, Dreiser and Hecht, excepting many of the notes of Charles Fort which was donated to the New York Public Library as a collection, was incorporated into the International Fortean Organisation (INFO
Info

Info is a common shortening of information.It may also refer to:* .info, a generic top-level domain*...
).

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