Today IEEE is
the world’s largest technical professional
society. It serves professionals around the
world involved in all aspects of the
electrical, electronic and computing fields
and related areas of science and technology.
IEEE’s roots, however, go back 125 years to
1884 when electricity was just beginning to
become a major force in society. There was
one major established electrical industry,
the telegraph, which — beginning in the
1840s — had come to connect the world with a
communications system faster than the speed
of transportation. A second major area had
only barely gotten underway — electric power
and light, originating in Thomas Edison’s
inventions and his pioneering Pearl Street
Station in New York.
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Program of the 1884
International Electrical
Exhibition, Franklin
Institute, Philadelphia,
where the AIEE held its
first technical meeting |
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In the spring
of 1884, a small group of individuals in the
electrical professions met in New York. They
formed a new organization to support
professionals in their nascent field and to
aid them in their efforts to apply
innovation — the American Institute of
Electrical Engineers or AIEE for short. That
October the AIEE held its first technical
meeting in Philadelphia, in conjunction with
an international electrical exhibition
hosted by the Franklin Institute. Many early
leaders, such as founding President Norvin
Green of Western Union, came from
telegraphy. Others, such as Thomas Edison,
came from power, while Alexander Graham Bell
represented the newer telephone industry. As
electric power spread rapidly across the
land—enhanced by innovations such as Nikola
Tesla’s AC Induction Motor, long distance AC
transmission and large-scale power plants,
and commercialized by industries such as
Westinghouse and General Electric—the AIEE
became increasingly focused on electrical
power. There was a secondary focus on wired
communication, both the telegraph and the
telephone. Through technical meetings,
publications, and promotion of standards,
the AIEE led the growth of the electrical
engineering profession, while through local
sections and student branches, it brought
its benefits to engineers in widespread
places.
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Invitation to the AIEE
organizational meeting,
Electrical World, 5
April 1884 |
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A new industry
arose beginning with Guglielmo Marconi’s
wireless telegraphy experiments at the turn
of the century. What was originally called
“wireless” became radio with the electrical
amplification possibilities inherent in the
vacuum tubes which evolved from John
Fleming’s diode and Lee de Forest’s triode.
With the new industry came a new society in
1912, the Institute of Radio Engineers. The
IRE was modeled on the AIEE, but was devoted
to radio, and then increasingly to
electronics. It, too, furthered its
profession by linking its members through
publications, standards and conferences, and
encouraging them to advance their industries
by promoting innovation and excellence in
the emerging new products and services.
Through the
help of leadership from the two societies,
and with the applications of its members’
innovations to industry, electricity wove
its way — decade by decade — more deeply
into every corner of life — television,
radar, transistors, computers. Increasingly,
the interests of the societies overlapped.
Membership in both societies grew, but
beginning in the 1940s, the IRE grew faster
and in 1957 became the larger group. On 1
January 1963, the AIEE and the IRE merged to
form the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers, or IEEE. At its
formation, the IEEE had 150,000 members,
140,000 of whom were in the United States.
By the time IEEE celebrated its centennial
in 1984, it had almost 250,000 members, only
200,000 of whom were in the United States.
It also expanded its scope to assist its
members in not only in their technical
interests but in their professional careers,
as well.
With IEEE’s
continued leadership, the technologies under
its aegis continued to spread across the
world, and reach into more and more areas of
people’s lives. The professional groups and
technical boards of the predecessor
institutions evolved into IEEE Societies. By
the early 21st Century, IEEE served its
members and their interests with 38
societies; 130 journals, transactions and
magazines; more 300 conferences annually;
and 900 active standards.
Over the last 25 years, computers have
evolved from massive mainframes to desktop
appliances to portable devices, all part of
a global network connected by satellites and
then by fiber optics. IEEE’s fields of
interest expanded well beyond
electrical/electronic engineering and
computing into areas such as micro- and
nanotechnology, ultrasonics, bioengineering,
robotics, electronic materials, and many
others. Electronics became ubiquitous — from
jet cockpits to industrial robots to medical
imaging. As technologies and the industries
that developed them increasingly transcended
national boundaries, IEEE kept pace,
becoming a truly global institution which
used the innovations of the practitioners it
represented to deliver products and services
to members, industries, and the public at
large.
Today, IEEE
publications and educational programs are
delivered online, as are member services
such as renewal and elections. The Institute
has 375,000 members in 160 countries, with
43 percent outside of the country where it
was founded a century and a quarter before.
Through its worldwide network of
geographical units, publications, web
services, and conferences, IEEE continues to
be the world's leading professional
association for the advancement of
technology.
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