Page 37 - Fall 2006

introduced an analogy between electri-
cal circuits and mechanical systems.
Other events included the broadcast of
the first movie with full audio in 1927.
(The motion picture industry partici-
pated in the early years of the Society
since the acoustics of rooms was of par-
ticular importance.) In addition, many
new electroacoustic sound sources and
receiving devices had been invented ear-
lier in the 20th century that previously
were not available to the earlier experi-
menters. The section on Engineering
Acoustics in Miller’s book describes a
classic paper written in 1925 by Rice and
Kellogg of General Electric on “a new
type of hornless loud speaker” that used
electromagnetics. Acousticians, along
with the public, were making good use of these new sources and receivers. This was acknowledged by noting that Thomas Edison, who created the groundwork for constructing much of this equipment, was named the Acoustical Society’s first honorary fellow in 1929.
Acousticians of the 20th century depended on the basic findings of a few giants from the previous century. Philip Morse (1903–1985), president of the Society from 1950-51, remarked in 1955 that “it behoves all of us physicists to read Rayleigh’s Science of Sound regularly.” To place the pre-1900 efforts in acoustics in historical perspective, Dayton Miller recalled that when he received his D.Sc. from Princeton in 1890, the four greats in the science of acoustics—Helmholtz (1821-1894), Köenig (1832-1901), Raleigh (1842-1919) and Tyndall (1820-1893)—were all still alive. Professor Miller’s life bridged this time between these 19th century original thinkers who wrote treatises on acoustics, and the new breed of scientists and engineers who were applying acoustics to
Fig. 1. ASA Founders in 1929
practical applications for consumers and for defence during the first third of the 20th century. Also spanning the gap was Wallace Clement Sabine (1868–1919) who published a num- ber of papers on the new science of acoustics of auditoriums around the turn of the century. He died in 1919 while serving as vice president of the American Physical Society.
Returning to the formation of the Acoustical Society, a second letter from Knudsen, Watson, and Waterfall was sent on December 10, 1928 to 16 people, mostly at universities, in which they described the need for a new organization. The letter asked recipients to alert their colleagues of an upcom- ing organizational meeting to be held on December 27, 1928 at the Bell Telephone Laboratories located at 463 West Street in New York City where Harvey Fletcher was director of the now famous Acoustics Research Department. Forty men attended this organizational meeting, most of whom were from New York and most from commercial organizations. Various suggestions were made for the name of the new
organization, starting with American Acoustical Society (parallelling the word order of the American Physical Society) and the Acoustic Society of America. But eventually F. R.Watson made a motion for the “Acoustical Society of America” that was adopted with one dissenting vote. In his recounting of that meeting years later at the 25th Anniversary celebration, Harvey Fletcher said that speeches were made by several of the people who attended that first organizing meeting, and “So you see our meeting started out as a talking Society and it has con- tinued ever since through the years. Fifty years from now, this little gather- ing will be referred to as the First Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America.”
The Society was formally organ- ized during its next meeting that was
Fig. 2. ASA Founders in 1954
History of ASA 35