The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) is a private, nonprofit federation of 75 scholarly organizations in the humanities and related social sciences founded in 1919.

The founders of ACLS, representatives of 13 learned societies, believed that a federation of scholarly organizations (dedicated to excellence in research, and most with open membership) was the best combination of U.S. democracy and intellectual aspirations.

Since its founding, ACLS has provided the humanities and related social sciences with leadership, opportunities for innovation, and national and international representation.

All ACLS awards are made through rigorous peer review by specially appointed committees of scholars from throughout the United States and, in some programs, abroad.

After World War II, when the practical need for such competence was evident, the ACLS and the Social Science Research Council developed African, Asian, Latin American, Near and Middle Eastern, Slavic, and East and West European studies.

Lovejoy wrote in the journal's first issue, "The processes of the human mind, in the individual or group, which manifest themselves in history, do not run in the enclosed channels corresponding to the officially established divisions of university faculties."

At the founding conference of the Committee on Negro Studies in 1940 Ralph Bunche said, "We cannot ignore the importance of making clear to ourselves the scope of our interest in terms of the very broad social implications of our deliberations and resources.

In 1992 the United States Information Agency asked the ACLS to reinstitute the Fulbright Program in Vietnam, operated by the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi.

In June 1999 under its President John D'Arms, ACLS received a $3-million, 5-year grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to initiate The History E-Book Project.

[7] "HEB continued to grow and to adjust accordingly, becoming self-sufficient in 2005, garnering attention and a supportive constituency among scholars, presses, libraries, and learned societies.

Another change occurred in 1957; the council moved its headquarters from Washington to New York and appointed Frederick Burkhardt its first president, signaling a new determination to place scholarship at the center of public culture.