[6] The AAS offers programs on a wide variety of subjects including but not limited to Environmental History, Indigenous Peoples Studies, and American Religion for professional scholars, pre-collegiate, undergraduate and graduate students, educators, professional artists, writers, genealogists, and the general public.

The Society is estimated to hold copies of two-thirds of the total books known to have been printed in what is now the United States from the establishment of the first press in 1640 through the year 1820; many of these volumes are exceedingly rare and a number of them are unique.

Designed by Winslow, Bigelow & Wadsworth, the Georgian Revival building was completed in 1910 and stands on the corner of Park Avenue and Salisbury Street.

One topic to which AAS dedicates significant academic energies is printing technology, especially in eighteenth-century British North America.

[19] With regard to printing, paper making, edition setting, and reprinting, not much had changed in European technology by the eighteenth century.

[21] Notable members include the following individuals: AAS was presented with the 2013 National Humanities Medal by President Obama in a ceremony at the White House.