Administrative/Biographical Note
The American Association of Immunologists, Inc. (AAI) was formally chartered on June
19, 1913 in Minneapolis, Minnesota while the founders, Dr. Gerald Webb, Dr. A. Parker
Hitchens and Dr. Martin Synnott were attending a meeting of The American Medical Association.
Three principal objectives were set forth by the 52 enrolled charter members which
were to unite the physicians of the United States and Canada who are engaged in the
scientific study of immunity and bacterial therapy; to study problems of immunology
and to promote by its concerted efforts a scientific research in this department;
and to spread a correct knowledge of vaccine therapy and immunology among general
practitioners. The Council established a liberal policy of admitting individuals with
a doctorate and several years of teaching and/or research in immunology including
publications. In 1972 the criterion for membership was modified and additional publishing
requirements were imposed in order to create a more exclusionary Society.
In February of 1916 in Baltimore Maryland the Association began publication of its
journal, The Journal of Immunology. The following year Association’s constitution
and bylaws were adopted on April 6, 1917. There have been two major revisions in the
Constitution since that time one in 1950 and the other in 1986. The alterations approved
in 1950 expanded the classes of membership to include Honorary and Emeritus members
and modified both election procedures and council membership requirements. The 1986
Constitutional revisions expanded the Council, called for the election of the nominating
committee, gave formal recognition to Corporate Members, changed the entitlements
of Emeritus and Honorary Members, replaced the Editorial Board with a Publications
Committee and changed the management of the Journal and the Editor in Chief.
AAI’s Council has the duty of general supervision of the affairs of AAI between annual
business meetings. The voting members of the Council include the President, Vice-President,
Secretary-Treasurer, and four Councillors. Chairs of the committees may also be asked
to attend Council meetings as non-voting members. They meet prior to the annual business
meeting and at other times deemed necessary by the President and three voting members
of the Council.
In the early years and until 1939 AAI scheduled its annual business meetings to coincide
with the meetings of the American Association of Pathologists and Bacteriologists.
However at the 1938 meeting of the Council and membership at large, a decision was
reached to convene joint sessions with the Federation of the American Societies of
Experimental Biologists. In 1942 AAI was formally invited to join the Federation
as a Corporate Member Society. From that time and at least until 1991 the annual business
meetings have been held in conjunction with FASEB.
For the first fifty years, the Association had no fixed location for executive activity.
During that time the AAI headquarters was either in the residence or the professional
offices of the Secretary/Treasurer. In 1965 a permanent headquarters was established
for the administration and management of Association affairs at Beaumont House in
FASEB headquarters. In 1980 the Council initiated moving the editorial office of
The Journal of Immunology to the AAI Central Office at FASEB. At this time AAI began
a search for an Executive Officer who would also serve as the Managing Editor for
the Journal. Three years later President Barry Bloom appointed Dr. Joseph Saunders
the first professional executive officer of the Association.
In 1968, the Council approved the appointment of a historian to assume responsibility
of collecting letters and photographs of past AAI Presidents and people of historic
significance to the Association. Past President Merrill Chase was selected as the
first historian and began collecting as much primary source data as possible about
the previous AAI Presidents. Dr. Joseph Saunders assumed the role of archivist as
one of his duties as Executive Director in 1983 and collected more data.
Currently AAI is the largest professional association of immunologists in the world.
It is still affiliated with FASEB and continues to have its headquarters located with
the FASEB.
Scope & Content
Arrangement
Organized into eight series: Series I. Council, 1941-1992. Series II. Meetings, 1954-1993.
Series III. Committees, 1966-1992. Series IV. Financial, 1921-1991. Series V. Historian,
1913-1988. Series VI. Publications, 1933-1995. Series VII. Affiliated Societies, 1967-1991.
Series VIII. Video and Audio Materials, 1970-1991.
Series I. Council
- Councillors
- Executive Director
- President
- Secretary/Treasurer
Series II. Meetings
- Annual/Business
- Council
- Executive Committee
- International Congress of Immunology
Series III. Committees
Series IV. Financial
Series V. Historian
- Historian Records
- Personal Histories
- Photographs
Series VI. Publications
Series VII. Affiliated Societies
Series VIII. Video and Audio Materials
Note
The collection of records of the American Association of Immunologists (AAI) primarily
documents its activity between 1967 and 1992. While there are records back as far
as 1941 they are very sporadic and consist mostly of correspondence. There are no
documents concerning the Association’s founding and years up to the late 1940s, although
there are articles included that relate the Associations history. The records are
arranged in eight series: Council, Meetings, Committees, Financial, Historian, Publications,
Affiliated Societies and Video and Audio Tapes.
The Council Series contains the records of Association Officers, Councillors, and
the Executive Director. The Officer and Councillor files consist almost entirely of
correspondence from the 1950s and 1960s though reports and meeting minutes are sometimes
interspersed with the correspondence. The Executive Director files are those of Dr.
Joe Saunders who was the first Executive Director of the Association and was appointed
in 1986. His files include some materials of the Administrative Assistant dating from
1967 to 1971. The series Meetings contains files from the Annual/Business meetings,
Council meetings, Executive Committee meetings and International Congress of Immunology
meetings. The Annual/Business meeting subseries contains files for meetings from 1954
to 1992 with the exception of 1955. The Council meeting files begin in 1946 and are
sporadic until 1965; from that point there is some material from each year until 1992.
The index for Executive Committee reports and the accompanying reports were gleaned
from meeting minutes and compiled in an easy to look up format. The system was devised
by Executive Director Dr. Joe Saunders and is a good source to see what the various
committees were involved in from 1973 to 1985. International Congress of Immunology
files consist of correspondence pertaining to travel grants and arrangements with
little information directly related to the meetings themselves.
Committee files are arranged in alpha order. The Education Committee files are the
most numerous. There is more information on committees in the Meeting Series.
Financial records are extremely limited and in no way complete. There are two Association
ledgers that cover the years from 1946 to 1970. The Membership Dues Ledger records
membership records dating from 1921 provides a comprehensive member list. Also included
are a small number of bank deposit and investment records, statements and a budget.
The Historian Series contains the files of the Associations first historian Merrill
Chase. He was appointed in 1965 and began compiling histories and photographs of all
AAI Presidents. Executive Director Dr. Joe Saunders added to Dr. Chase’s work. The
files are in alpha order and include information and photographs of people other than
AAI Presidents.
The Publication Series contains AAI publications such as newsletters from 1971 to
1991, meeting programs from from1960 to 1987. Although the Association published the
Journal of Immunology since 1916, there are only volumes included from 1988 and 1989.
The bulk of the material was not published by AAI but was included in the accession.
It includes scientific articles, brochures, meeting programs and books. They are listed
in alpha order.
Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), the International
Congress of Immunology, the International Union of Immunological Societies and the
New York Academy of Science Conference are included in the Affiliated Societies Series.
The majority of the files are from AAI’s close relationship with FASEB and date from
1961 to 1990. There are FASEB yearly membership directories from 1965 to 1979. The
files are in alpha order followed by date order.
Audio cassette tapes are available for some Annual and Council meeting from 1986 to
1991. The video cassettes contain interviews and lectures.
Provenance Information
Provenance and Acquisition Information
MSS 1996-03; The records in this collection were donated in a single gift on March
29, 1996. The donation was approved by Dr. Michelle Hogan and the materials transferred
from the Society’s offices in Bethesda, MD.
Processing Note
This collection was processed by Sharon Knecht under the supervision of Maria Frank
Peri and completed in November 2001.
The majority of the records were found to be in relatively good order since the bulk
of them were the files of Executive Director Dr. Joe Saunders. There were very few
financial or membership records included in the acquisition. Committee files containing
reports were occasionally filed separately but the more often were found interspersed
with meeting files. The remaining records have been organized by type of activity
based on the order in which they were received.
Multiple copies have been disposed of whenever there were more than two copies of
a given document.
No materials were found for the early years of the Association (1913 –1960s) with
the exception of a few pieces of correspondence of past Presidents. These documents
had been gathered first by the Association Historian, Merrill Chase and later by the
Executive Director, Joe Saunders. Correspondence and Minutes indicate that there was
a discussion about sending the association archives to the University of Wisconsin,
but it is not clear if that was ever done.
In the course of reviewing container lists in March 2016, Series V. Historian was
modified. Several folders which were not previously contained in a subseries were
assigned to Subseries V.A. Historian Records. The preexisting subseries, V.A. Personal
Histories, and V.B. Photographs, were renamed as subseries V.B and V.C respectively.
Descriptive Rules Used
Describing Archives: a Content Standard (DACS)
Archives Processing Manual: Description (2015): The processing manual used in Special Collections for all descriptive platforms, including
PastPerfect.
