Members include university, college, and high school teachers; graduate and undergraduate students; pure and applied mathematicians; computer scientists; statisticians; and many others in academia, government, business, and industry.

[3] The MAA publishes several book series, aimed at a broad audience, but primarily for undergraduates majoring in mathematics.

The MAA is composed of the following twenty-nine regional sections: Allegheny Mountain, EPADEL, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Intermountain, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana/Mississippi, MD-DC-VA, Metro New York, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska – SE SD, New Jersey, North Central, Northeastern, Northern CA – NV-HI, Ohio, Oklahoma-Arkansas, Pacific Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Seaway, Southeastern, Southern CA – NV, Southwestern, Texas, Wisconsin There are seventeen Special Interest Groups of the Mathematical Association of America (SIGMAAs).

But the roots of the Association can be traced to the 1894 founding of the American Mathematical Monthly by Benjamin Finkel, who wrote "Most of our existing journals deal almost exclusively with subjects beyond the reach of the average student or teacher of mathematics or at least with subjects with which they are familiar, and little, if any, space, is devoted to the solution of problems…No pains will be spared on the part of the Editors to make this the most interesting and most popular journal published in America."

One notorious incident at a south-eastern sectional meeting in Nashville in 1951 has been documented[13] by the American mathematician and equal rights activist Lee Lorch, who in 2007 received the most prestigious award given by the MAA (the Yueh-Gin Gung and Dr. Charles Y. Hu Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics).

[14][15] The citation delivered at the 2007 MAA awards presentation, where Lorch received a standing ovation, recorded that: The Association's first woman president was Dorothy Lewis Bernstein (1979–1980).