American Association of Immunologists records

Overview

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

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.

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

Provenance 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.

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.

Access & Use

No restrictions.

Reproduction allowed for research purposes. Copyright maintained by creator.

Subject Headings

• American Association of Immunologists Archives
• Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology Archives
• Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology
• Immunology Societies, etc.
• Saunders Joe

Series Description & Container List

Expand all | Collapse all

Series I. Council

Subseries I.A. Councilors

Subseries I.B. Executive Director

Subseries I.C. President

Subseries I.D. Secretary/Treasurer

Series II. Meetings

Subseries II.A. Annual/Business Meetings

Subseries II.B. Council

Subseries II.C. Executive Committee

Subseries II.D. International Congress of Immunology

Series III. Committees

Series IV. Financial

Series V. Historian

Subseries V.A. Historian Records

Subseries V.B. Personal Histories

Subseries V.C. Photographs

Series VI. Publications

Series VII. Affiliated Societies

Series VIII. Video and Audio Tapes