Our Founding Fathers 1871

The First 22 23

More than mining and, as today, representing industry, academia, government

As you can see by the backgrounds of the founding members below, they were diverse, as "mining" engineer was more broadly defined in 1871.  They included some trained in civil engineering, metallurgy, and chemistry.  In fact, AIME’s first President and Honorary Member was a blast furnace expert.

Note that all references talk about “the 22”, not 23 – AIME President from 1872-1874 (and Secretary for 27 years), Rossiter Raymond, noted in 1918, shortly before he died, that Martin Coryell was at the organizing meeting and acted as Secretary. However, he forgot to include his own name on the list of attendees and, thus, formally joined on Day 2 of the meeting. This oversight has been rectified here.

A notable miner among the founders was AIME’s 2^nd President and then “Executive Director” for the next 27 years, Rossiter Raymond.  He is noted as being a sailor, soldier, engineer, lawyer, orator, editor, novelist, story-teller, poet, biblical critic, theologian, teacher, and chess-player!  His role in AIME’s founding was so important that a 2000 pound relief in honor of Raymond’s contributions to the Institute was moved from the NY offices to SME in Colorado in 2003 and is still proudly displayed in their foyer.

Remarks by the last surviving Founder, Henry Sturgis Drinker, at the Silver Jubilee of AIME, Wilkes-Barre, PA, USA, May 16, 1921

Many thanks to SME Pennsylvania Anthracite Past Chair, Mike Korb, for providing the detail in the links below on historical information about AIME's Founders.