The American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) was a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

-based organization of

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the ...

s that existed from 1884 through 1962. On January 1, 1963, it merged with the

Institute of Radio Engineers The Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) was a professional organization which existed from 1912 until December 31, 1962. On January 1, 1963, it merged with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) to form the Institute of Electrical ...

(IRE) to form the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

History

American Institute of Electrical Engineers bookplate

The 1884 founders of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) included some of the most prominent inventors and innovators in the then new field of electrical engineering, among them

Nikola Tesla Nikola Tesla ( ; ,"Tesla"
'' Thomas Alva Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These invent ...

Elihu Thomson Elihu Thomson (March 29, 1853 – March 13, 1937) was an English-born American engineer and inventor who was instrumental in the founding of major electrical companies in the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Early life He was bo ...

, Edwin J. Houston, and Edward Weston. The purpose of the AIEE was stated "to promote the Arts and Sciences connected with the production and utilization of electricity and the welfare of those employed in these Industries: by means of social intercourse, the reading and discussion of professional papers and the circulation by means of publication among members and associates of information thus obtained." The first president of AIEE was Norvin Green, president of the

Western Union Telegraph Company The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company ch ...

. Other notable AIEE presidents were

Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell (, born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and T ...

(1891–1892), Charles Proteus Steinmetz (1901–1902), Bion J. Arnold (1903-1904),

Schuyler S. Wheeler Schuyler Skaats Wheeler (May 17, 1860 – April 20, 1923) was an American electrical engineer and manufacturer who invented the electric fan, an electric elevator design, and the electric fire engine. He is associated with the early development ...

(1905–1906), Dugald C. Jackson (1910–1911), Ralph D. Mershon (1912–1913), Michael I. Pupin (1925–1926), and

Titus G. LeClair Titus Caesar Vespasianus ( ; 30 December 39 – 13 September 81 AD) was Roman emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death. Before becoming emperor, Titus gained renown as a mili ...

(1950–1951). The first technical meeting of the AIEE was held during the International Electrical Exhibition of 1884, in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Ma ...

(October 7–8, at the

Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memor ...

). After several years of operating primarily in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, the AIEE authorized local sections in 1902. These were formed first in the United States (

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

and Ithaca, 1902) and then in other countries (the first section outside the US being

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...

, established in 1903). The AIEE's regional structure was soon complemented by a technical structure –the first technical committee of AIEE (the High Voltage Transmission Committee) being formed in 1903. Standardization work started in 1891 with the formation of a committee on units and standards, followed by a committee on standard wiring. The formation of the AIEE Subcommittee on Large-Scale Computing in 1946 was considered a key milestone in the history of

computer engineering Computer engineering (CoE or CpE) is a branch of electrical engineering and computer science that integrates several fields of computer science and electronic engineering required to develop computer hardware and software. Computer enginee ...

. It was the first time that a professional association recognized the significance of computers and computing in electro-technology. The early technical areas of interest of AIEE were

electric power Electric power is the rate at which electrical energy is transferred by an electric circuit. The SI unit of power is the watt, one joule per second. Standard prefixes apply to watts as with other SI units: thousands, millions and billions ...

lighting Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing dayli ...

, and wired communications.

Radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transm ...

and wireless communications became the major focus of a rival organization, the

(the IRE, established 1912). The dynamic growth of radio technology and the emergence of the new discipline of

electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...

in the 1940s led to stiff competition between AIEE and IRE, with IRE showing faster growth in the 1950s and early 1960s, and attracting more students. In 1957, the IRE, with approximately 55,500 members, surpassed the AIEE in membership size; by 1962 the IRE had 96,500 members to the AIEE's 57,000.

Institute's first logo

After the AIEE's founding in 1884, its member's badge was created in 1893 by a committee headed by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, President of AIEE from 1891 to 1892. The badge's logo depicted

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a m ...

's kite, representative of the discovery that lightning carried electricity. The design also showed a winding of gold wire with its midpoints crossed by a galvanometer's indicator, invoking the electrical engineer's Wheatstone bridge. Additionally,

Ohm's law Ohm's law states that the current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the voltage across the two points. Introducing the constant of proportionality, the resistance, one arrives at the usual mathematical equatio ...

and the letters 'AIEE' were added in gold at the logo's base. The busy logo design was replaced four years later.Evolution of the IEEE Logo
IEEE Student Journal, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, March 1963, Page 48

Merger and evolution

The AIEE and the IRE merged in 1963 to form the

, in short order becoming the world's largest technical society.

References

;Notes ;Bibliography
IEEE
Newlife International website.

External links

{{Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers American engineering organizations Electrical engineering organizations Organizations established in 1884

History

Institute's first logo

Merger and evolution

See also

References

External links