View source for Milestone-Proposal:First Technical Meeting of AIEE 1884

{{Proposal
|docketid=2012-04
|more than 25 years=Yes
|within fields of interest=Yes
|benefit to humanity=Yes
|regional importance=Yes
|ou is paying=Yes
|ou is arranging dedication=Yes
|section is taking responsibility for plaque=Yes
|a11=Yes
|a3=1884
|a1=First Technical Meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, 1884
|plaque citation=As part of the landmark International Electrical Exhibition organized by the Franklin Institute and held in Philadelphia in the autumn of 1884, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (the predecessor of IEEE) held its first formal technical conference on electrical engineering on 7-8 October 1884.  It was attended by several U.S. and sixteen foreign scientists and electrical engineers. This technical meeting is historically significant for being the first formal technical conference on electrical engineering held in the United States.
|a2b=Philadelphia Section
|IEEE units paying=
|IEEE units arranging=
|IEEE sections monitoring=
|Milestone proposers={{Milestone proposer
|Proposer name=Moshe Kam
}}
|a7=Franklin Institute, Philadelphia
|a8=Yes, but the original building the meeting was held in is currently the Atwater Kent Museum, which does not allow plaques to be affixed to the building
|a10=The Franklin Institute
|a4=As part of the landmark International Electrical Exhibition organized by the Franklin Institute and held in Philadelphia in the Fall of 1884, a technical conference was organized by the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, attended by several native and sixteen foreign scientists and electrical engineers. This technical meeting is historically significant for being the first formal technical conference on electrical engineering held in the United States. The format and topics discussed in this conference served as a precursor for AIEE's future technical meetings. Moreover this meeting went on to being an annual fixture in AIEE's calendar. More importantly it resembled later conferences in many important respects thus setting the format for them; members of the AlEE delivered papers on a variety of electrical engineering topics and followed by a discussion on the papers. The topics presented encompassed both theoretical and practical interests as witnessed by the first paper read by Edwin J. Houston titled "Some Notes on Incandescent Lamps" which is of the former kind while the second paper read by W. M. Chandler on "Underground Wires" was directly aimed at the practical interests of the engineers. The presented papers also went on to appear in the society's first Transactions to be published early in 1885. The formation of AIEE ushered in the age of the professional engineer. 
	The first AIEE president, Norvin Green, was the president of Western Union; the six vice presidents included Thomas Edison, telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell, MIT physics professor Charles Cross, two veteran telegraphers – George Hamilton and Franklin Pope, and an employee of equipment manufacturer Western Electric.
Within a decade of its founding, AIEE had become the technical society for the electrical engineer. It was also an important developer of national and international standards. Beginning within a year of its founding by supporting wire gauge standards developed elsewhere; by the late 1890s, AIEE had turned to developing its own standards for electrical apparatus, and in 1898 issued the first report of its committee on standardization. Promulgation of standards became an ongoing activity. AIEE was one of the predecessor bodies of IEEE, presently the largest professional society in the world with 400,000 members.
|references=A. Michal McMahon, The Making of a Profession: A Century of Electrical Engineering in America, 1984, IEEE Press, pp 1-4	

John D. Ryder and Donald G. Fink, Engineers and Electrons, 1984, IEEE Press, pp 33-35	

Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Vol 1, 1884

|submitted=No
}}