The Pioneer America Society: Association for the Preservation of Artifacts and Landscapes (PAS: APAL) is a professional and scholarly organization formed to promote dialogue and discourse among its diverse membership. It exists to promote and support the serious study of material culture, in all its forms, and ongoing efforts of documentation and preservation of these artifacts extant in the Americas. The Society is an international, non-profit, educational association supported entirely by membership dues and contributions. Its membership is drawn from various academic disciplines (geography, history, anthropology, folklore), applied professions (architects, lawyers, preservationists, educators), along with informed and interested parties that enjoy the pursuit of interpreting the visual landscape and adding to the list of scholarly research.
The mission of PAS: APAL is an urgent one and has become more so in recent years. With each passing day, the objects that we identify as material artifacts, which is virtually everything created by human conduct and defines us as a culture, are disappearing at an alarming rate. Members of the Society gather annually at an organized conference to present to others their research into the fundamental objects, rituals, and ideals that have shaped the landscapes of the Americas. Sharing their research with a larger audience allows understanding and appreciation of such phenomena which can then be supported by the membership body. The knowledge of the past gives us insight into where we are today, and can provide some direction for future endeavors.
Publication of the Society's peer-reviewed, scholarly journal Material Culture and conference proceedings in P.A.S.T. (Pioneer America Society Transactions) documents and disseminates this research and these findings to an international audience. This, in turn, allows others to fully appreciate that which they see on a daily basis. Thus, the mission of the Society is carried out for future researchers and an appreciation of the things we may consider today to be mundane. As they become oddities in the future, there will be a body of literature to give the proper context of such subjects from a contemporary viewpoint. As members, we hold this mission in high regard, and focus our expertise and energy to make sure that which defines us now is interpreted in the proper vein by successive layers of interested researchers.