Page 38 - Fall 2006

Fig. 3. ASA New York meeting, 75th anniversary banquet
held May 9-11, 1929 at the auditorium at Bell Labs in New York City which attracted 183 registrants. On the first day of the technical portion of the meeting, a joint session was held with the Society of Motion Picture Engineers. The program included two symposia—one on methods of measuring absorption coefficients and the second on speech. There was a total of 22 papers that were presented consecutively, two panel discussions, and one demonstration lecture on the sci- ence of musical sounds. By October 1929, the organization had grown to 492 members, and the charter members num- bered 416.
The minutes of the first official meeting held on May 10, 1929 can be found in the first issue of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (Volume 1, No. 1, October 1929). Dayton Miller proposed that the organization include not just acoustic engineering but widened to include “...the study of the ear, hearing, otology, matters of speech, speak- ing...if we could get those various groups together and work together then I think there would be every reason in the world for the organization of the society.” Harvey Fletcher (1884-1981) and Dayton Miller (1866-1941) had stressed earlier the desirability to include a more diverse set of tech- nical fields than just architectural acoustics to create a more stable institution. Even then, there was some concern expressed that the proposed society would be too small to stand alone because of the narrow interest only in the science
of sound. A proposal was then made that the group organize as a subcommittee of an already-existing organization. However, one opinion expressed was that if it were formed as an independent society, it would contribute to another organization so that papers could be published in an estab- lished journal.
Finally the group decided on a purpose of the new soci- ety: “to increase and diffuse the knowledge of acoustics and promote its practical applications.” Temporary officers were elected, publications were discussed, and plans were made for further development of the organization. This included a journal, standards, membership, qualifications, finances, and most importantly, the scope of the organization. The first official actions by the Council at its May 10, 1929 meeting were to appoint several committees including a Publication Committee that was charged with publishing the proceedings for the first meeting and to investigate the possibility of start- ing a journal. A Membership Committee was given the charge to put into execution a plan to increase the member- ship of the Society, and to approve the site of the next meet- ing and the appointment of a local committee and Program Committee. The Acoustical Society of America had officially started its operations!
The Society was international in scope from its very beginning with 17 of its charter members residing outside the U.S. including members from Australia, Belgium, Canada,
36 Acoustics Today, October 2006