American Chess Association

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The American Chess Association was a chess organization founded in New York, 1857.^[1][2] The organization organized the first major chess tournament, the First American Chess Congress, in the United States on October 6, 1857.^[3][4] On November 11, 1857, Paul Morphy, who had defeated Louis Paulsen in the tournament, was presented with a silver service at the prize giving by Colonel Charles D. Mead,^{[citation needed]} President of the ACA.^[5] On behalf of Paul Morphy, the American Chess Association offered a $5,000 challenge to any player in Europe to contest a match with the recently crowned ACA champion.^[6]

The ACA published a monthly magazine, American Chess Monthly, founded in January 1857 by Willard Fiske, who had helped organize the First American Chess Congress.^[7] Fiske edited American Chess Monthly from 1857 until 1860, four months before it ceased publication. Morphy was credited as co-editor, though he had little actual involvement.^[8] (Another magazine of the same name published in 1892-93 had no connection with this one.)^[9]

In 1874, the American Chess Association changed its name to the National Chess Association.^[10] A successor organization, the National Chess Federation, merged with the American Chess Federation in 1939 to create the modern U.S. Chess Federation.^[11]

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Willard Fiske (1859). The book of the first American chess congress; containing the proceedings of that celebrated assemblage held in New York in the year 1857 together with sketches of the history of chess in the old and new worlds. New York: Rudd & Carlton. OCLC 3734014.