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In The Beginning, to determine the scope of interest, an announcement of intent to form a Eudora Welty Society (EWS) was circulated at “Eudora Welty: The Eye of the Story,” a conference organized by Professor Dawn Trouard and held Sept. 17-19, 1987, in Akron, OH. This announcement, like the Akron conference program, bore John Sokol’s portrait of Welty, entitled Eudora Welty as “Powerhouse” (© 1986). Carey Wall, Susan Donaldson, and Trouard formed the initial coordinating committee.
The American Literature Association (ALA) was established in 1990 to operate largely through single-author societies, such as the rapidly growing Eudora Welty Society. The EWS boasted fifty members at the time of its first organizational meeting, held during the Modern Language Association (MLA) annual conference, Dec. 28, 1991, at New Joe’s on Geary St., in San Francisco. Hosts were Wall and Donaldson; others in attendance were Carol Manning, Rebecca Mark, Peggy Prenshaw, and Louise Westling.
In 1992, the EWS held its annual business meeting at the ALA conference in San Diego, beginning an alternation of annual meetings between the west and east coasts. Although historically these meetings have taken place in San Diego and Baltimore, (now in Boston and San Francisco) the last weekend in May, the 2000 meeting was in Long Beach, CA, and the May 2001 conference took place in Cambridge, MA.
The EWS also regularly sponsors panels at such conferences as the MLA, the Society for the Study of Southern Literature (SSSL) and regional conferences like the South Central Modern Language Association (SCMLA).