The Salem Lyceum was founded in 1830 in Salem, Massachusetts, for the purpose of "mutual instruction and rational entertainment by means of lectures, etc." The first president was Judge Daniel A. White, who delivered the introductory lecture on the subject "The Advantages of Knowledge." The original subscribers included Daniel A. White, Leverett Saltonstall, John Forrester, John Russell, George Choate, Francis Peabody, and John Derby. At first, lectures were mostly delivered by members of the Lyceum who contributed their services without fee or reward. Early lectures were given in the Methodist meetinghouse on Sewall Street or the Universalist meetinghouse on Rust Street. Lyceum Hall was constructed in 1830 to be ready for occupancy in January 1831 at a cost of $3,036.71. The new hall could accommodate 700 patrons in amphitheater-style seating and was decorated with images of Cicero, Demosthenes and other great orators of bygone days.

Lectures were held on Tuesday evenings. Admission was $1 for men and 75 cents for women, who had to be "introduced" by a male to gain entrance. Most of the early speakers, including John Pickering, Henry K. Oliver and Charles Upham, were Lyceum members and spoke gratis or for a minimal fee. The combination of unpaid lecturers and sellout crowds (most talks had to be repeated on Wednesday) enabled the Society to pay off the outstanding mortgage on its new hall in a short time. The organization was incorporated in 1852.

Lecturers included: Charles F. Adams, John Quincy Adams, Louis Agassiz, Clara Barton, Henry Ward Beecher, Rufus Choate, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, Frederic Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edward Everett, Edward Everett Hale, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., James Russell Lowell, Horace Mann, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, Henry David Thoreau, and Daniel Webster.

The most significant event to take place in the Lyceum Hall, Alexander Graham Bell's first public demonstration of the telephone, occurred on February 12, 1877.

In 1898, the Salem Lyceum voted to dissolve the corporation. The records and remaining monies were given to the Essex Institute. The money was to be invested and to be known as the "Salem Lyceum Fund" to be used to maintain a course of lectures.