Perspective: IEEE and the `Founders' - II: AIChE is born, IRE's roots are traced, the merger takes place creating IEEE, and today's societies' finances and futures are scanned

Abstract

Power struggles and factional clashes make the individual histories of the major engineering societies surprisingly fascinating topics for investigation. Of equal, or even greater, interest to IEEE members are present-day similarities and differences in these societies' approaches to member services. Last month's Spectrum told the stories of four of the "Founder Societies" - an appellation derived from the joint society financing and construction of two headquarters buildings over the years. IEEE's predecessor society, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE); the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME); the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE); and the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers (AIME) were all discussed in some detail in the May issue. Significant differences in the approaches of the individual societies to member services were explained as outgrowths of conditions surrounding the formative years of each society. This sequel to that article completes the comparison by considering the fifth Founder Society, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), and IEEE's other ancestral society, the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE). The article concludes by addressing several present-day concerns of the Founder Societies that will be of particular interest to IEEE members since those concerns reflect on some of IEEE's recent or incipient controversies.