2009 Conference Preliminary information

THE 2009 IEEE CONFERENCE ON THE HISTORY OF TECHNICAL SOCIETIES

In 2009 the IEEE History Committee and the IEEE History Center will hold the eighth in a series of historical conferences.  The 2009 IEEE History Conference will take place in Philadelphia from Wednesday 5 August through Friday 7 August 2009.  The theme of the conference will be the history of professional technical associations, a theme chosen because 2009 will be the 125^th anniversary of IEEE.  The location is appropriate because the IEEE, then the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, was founded in Philadelphia.  The conference will be part of the year-long IEEE celebration of this event.

 We propose to combine the sort of history conference that IEEE has done in the past with a celebration of the Institute's anniversary in the following way: there will be a full program of historical talks, over two and a half days, together with a larger and more prominent five-hour event that would be the public face of the anniversary celebration.

The historical papers will be presented in focused sessions over the two-and-a-half days in two tracks, though there would be one or more plenary sessions.  Perhaps 100 or 150 people would participate in the historical conference.  We hope to have meeting space at both Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania for the conference, and we hope to be able to offer attendees inexpensive lodging at university dormitories.

The public face of the anniversary celebration will be held at the Franklin Institute on Thursday 6 August from 6:00 pm until 11:00 pm.  This event will be open to conference attendees as well as to others wishing to join in the celebration.  The evening would begin with a reception and exhibit viewing, as some galleries of the Franklin Institute will be accessible for the event.  This would be followed by a sit-down dinner featuring a number of speakers.  The speakers would include Joseph Bordogna, who has agreed to be Honorary Chair of the conference, IEEE President John Vig, and Dick Gowen, Chair of the History Committee.  There would also be a keynote speaker, not yet determined.

We believe this conference can be important in several ways.  The papers written for the conference would be a great contribution to researching the history of engineering organizations, a topic that deserves more attention than it has received.  The public celebration of the IEEE anniversary would be valuable both for IEEE members, strengthening their ties to the Institute, and for the general public, informing them of the important roles engineering societies have played, and continue to play, in society.

THE CONFERENCE PROGRAM

We will invite papers on the history of the engineering profession, particularly on the role of professional societies in engineering, and emphasis will be on the technical fields served by IEEE.

We expect that historians and engineers will propose papers on publications, standards, professional ethics, and other aspects of the engineering profession.  We expect that the majority of papers will deal with the history of particular professional organizations.  The IEEE has good relations with engineering organizations around the world , and we hope that many would want to send one or more representations, either to present historical papers or to mount a small exhibit on the organization.  An exhibit area, which might include also poster presentations from individuals, might be available for much of the conference.

We will encourage people to prepare papers on the history of the many IEEE entities, such as the Technical Societies, the Regions, IEEE-USA, and Standards.  We will extend special invitations to the so-called Founder Societies—besides IEEE, the Mechanical Engineers, the Civil Engineers, the Chemical Engineers, and the Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers—and hold a special session on the history of these organizations.  There will also be a session on what the past tells us about the future.