Page 36 - Fall 2006

SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS OF HISTORY OF THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
Charles E. Schmid
and
Elaine Moran Acoustical Society of America Melville, New York 11747
Introduction
Much can happen in 75 years, whether it is to a person’s life or the life of a Society. In fact most of the history of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) has been built upon the professional lives of its members. Since there was no one source of information for compiling this historical account of the Society, information from ASA correspon- dence files, from personal recollec- tions, from the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA) and other articles have been gathered together to write this informal history. To make it easier to read about the entire 75 years—or just segments of those years—this history has been organized into six chronological time segments:
• 1928–May 1929
Formation of the Acoustical Society
• June 1929–1940
Organizational Years/Great Depression
• 1941–1948
World War II and Immediate Post-War Years
• 1949–1954
20th and 25th Anniversary Celebrations
• 1955–1990
Expanding Publications–Inside and Outside the Society
• 1991–2004 Building Diversity
Of course, these are somewhat artificial categories that have been used to help organize the history of the Society into manageable sections. There is indeed overlap and many topics do not neatly fit under these six headings. In addition, the histories of the technical fields, ASA standards, and edu- cation in acoustics have been, for the most part, omitted since
they are well covered in the various sections in the 75th Anniversary book, ASA at 75.
1. Formation of the Acoustical Society of America
• 1928–May 1929
The idea for forming a society specifically devoted to acoustics had its beginnings on July 30, 1928 when Floyd R. Watson (1873–1974), Vern O. Knudsen (1893–1974) and Wallace Waterfall (1890–1974) met at a Santa Monica beach club near Los Angeles, California. They originally envisioned an organization for engineers working in architectural acoustics. In the fall of 1928, they sent letters to men who were working in acoustics proposing the formation of an “American Society of Acoustical Engineers.”
Looking back, we can see that there were a number of reasons why the idea for a new society on acoustics emerged at that particular time. First, other societies were not fulfill- ing the needs of acousticians. In 1929 Harvey Fletcher had just published his book Speech and Hearing that set the foun- dation for the field of airborne acoustics to accompany all the new devices that were being invented. He noted that present- ing his papers at the meetings of the American Physical Society had been less than stimulating because there were so few people there interested in the work he was doing. A sec- ond reason was given by Dayton Miller in his 1935 book Anecdotal History of the Science of Sound to the Beginning of the 20th Century. He observed that there were many events occurring in the world of sound leading up to the concept of forming a society dedicated to acoustics, including rapid advancements in the field during this period. He stated that “More progress has been made in the realm of sound in the first third of the 20th century than in all the preceding cen- turies.” He attributed much of this to the use of underwater sound during World War I, along with sound being trans- mitted by radio and telephone, amplified for hearing aids, and recorded and reproduced with gramophones and later for the movies. The section on Structural Acoustics and Vibration in Miller’s book noted that Warren Mason was working on filtering of waves and that Floyd Firestone had
This article was published in the book ASA at 75 that was prepared for ASA’s 75th anniversary celebration held in New York City in May 2004.
34 Acoustics Today, October 2006