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The 'Fortean Society' was started in Britain in 1931 by Tiffany Thayer in order to promote the ideas of American writer Charles Fort. The Fortean Society was primarily based in New York City headed by first president Theodore Dreiser, an old friend of Charles Fort, who had helped to get his work published. Early members of The Fortean Society included Booth Tarkington, Ben Hecht, Alexander Woolcott (and many of NYC's literati) and Baltimore writer H.L. Mencken.
Towards the end of his life Thayer had championed increasingly idiosyncratic ideas, such as a Flat Earth, and opposed others, such as the fluoridation of water supplies. After Fort's death his widow gave his notes to the Society and they published them as they could in the magazine. Many Society members went on to become prominent science fiction authors, and Fort's ideas and influence can be seen in their work.
The ''Fortean Society Magazine'' (also called ''Doubt'') was published regularly until Thayer's death in Nantucket, Massachusetts in 1959, when the society and magazine came to an end. Writers Paul and Ron Willis, publishers of "Anubis" acquired most of the original Fortean Society material and revived The Fortean Society as The International Fortean Organization (INFO) in the early 1960's. INFO went on to incorporate in 1965, publish a widely respected magazine "The INFO Journal: Science and the Unknown" for over 35 years and created the first conference dedicated to the work and spirit of Charles Fort, the FortFest.
The magazine and society were not connected to the present-day magazine ''Fortean Times'' created by a British fortean and long-time correspondent to Paul Willis, Bob Rickard, who encouraged Willis to publish. Much of the Fortean Society material was incorporated into the International Fortean Organisation (INFO).