The Société Ethnologique de Paris was a French learned society set up by William Frédéric Edwards in 1839.
[1] At the time, ethnology was a neologism (ethnologie in French), and the Société was the first association of scholars and travellers to have as its central concern race.
It is considered a significant institution in the rise of the social sciences, though there had been earlier societies in the area in the first decades of the 19th century.
[5] Edwards was the first President, with Imbert des Mottelettes as Secretary,[6] but he died in 1842 and was replaced by the vicomte de Santarém.
The membership of the Société included significant Saint-Simonian figures, among them Gustave d'Eichthal and Ismael Urbain.