Articles of Incorporation

In May of 1900, the USP Board of Trustees was directed by the Convention to incorporate the USP organization under the laws of the District of Columbia. Because the District of Columbia required that the majority of officers subscribing to the Certificate of Incorporation be residents, the filing was slightly delayed in order to appoint appropriate representatives. Nevertheless, the articles of incorporation were prepared, appropriately signed, and finally filed on July 11 of that year.

The original certificate reads as follows:

Certificate of Incorporation

This is to certify that we, whose names are hereunto subscribed, citizens of the United States, of full age, and a majority citizens of the District of Columbia, do associate ourselves together pursuant to the provisions of sections 545-552 inclusive of the Revised Statutes of the United States relating to the District of Columbia and of the Act of Congress to amend the same, approved the twenty-third day of April 1884, under the corporate name of The United States Pharmacopoeial Convention.

This Association is organized for a period of nine hundred and ninety-nine years.

The particular objects and business of this Association are the encouragement and promotion of the science and art of medicine and pharmacy by selecting by research and experiment and other proper methods and by naming such materials as may be properly used as medicines and drugs with formulas for their preparation; by establishing one uniform standard and guide for the use of those engaged in the practice of medicine and pharmacy in the United States whereby the identity, strength, and purity of all such medicines and drugs may be accurately determined, and for other like and similar purposes; and by printing and distributing at suitable intervals such formulas and the results of such and similar selections, names and determinations among the members of this Association, pharmacists, and physicians generally in the United States and others interested in pharmacy and medicine.

The management and control of the affairs, funds, and property of this Association for the first year of its existence shall be vested in a Board of Trustees consisting of the seven following persons: