Abstract
International expeditions during the so-called Antarctic heroic age were key for the political future of the white continent. Nevertheless, while the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Norway and other nations carried out significant efforts to strengthen their presence in the region, the United States -by then an emerging power- did not participate in the process. According to the above, this paper aspires to identify some of the reasons for the US Antarctic behavior, and -especially- it examines the perspectives that some of the most influential American scientific societies adopted toward the US Antarctic inaction during the first decade of the 20th century. This exploratory work is mostly based on press materials, official documents, and articles appeared in journals and bulletins belonging to the scientific societies under analysis