Found in the Archives: The IRE President's Book

The author recently discovered a book titled The IRE Presidents Book deep within the IEEE History Archives. The book is a leather-bound reprint of the very first issue of the Proceedings of the IRE, published in January 1913. Like that first issue of the Proceedings, the book contains the three original IRE papers written by leading engineers of the time: Experimental Tests of the Radiation Law of Antenna, Michael Pupin; High Tension Insulators for Radio-Communications, Stanley Hills; and Recent Developments in the Work of the Federal Telegraph Company, Lee de Forest. The most interesting aspect of this artifact is that each page is signed by an IRE president, 50 in all, from 1912 to 1962. This span covers the entire independent life of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE), which was formed through the merger of the Society of Wireless Telegraph Engineers and the Wireless Institute in 1912, and later merged with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) to form the IEEE in 1963. Each IRE president served a one-year term and was elected by the membership. This article presents short biographies of seven presidents, including the first and the last. The varied backgrounds and the accomplishments of seven representative presidents, one from each decade between 1912 and 1962, are outlined.