For more than a century, the words "National Geographic" have conjured up images of natural wonders, bold exploration, and fascinating foreign cultures. Generations of Americans have looked to the National Geographic Society for information about the wider world, and millions of readers have paged through the familiar yellow-clad National Geographic Magazine to make contact with a world far beyond their immediate experience. Likewise, the editorial choices of the magazine have shaped the American vision of the outside world, whether via the exhibits in the Explorers' Hall at the Society's museum in Washington, D.C., or through its colorful magazine or its countless books and television documentaries.

The National Geographic Society was founded in January, 1888, when thirty-three members of the elite Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C. gathered there with the goal of founding a "society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge." The end of...