Earlier this month, I learned that the Fluids Engineering Division (FED) of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is celebrating its 100th anniversary this summer at their annual summer meeting (FEDSM2026). They may be the oldest fluid mechanics-specific professional society in the United States...let's take a look at the evidence for this claim.
First, ASME was founded in 1880, and its Hydraulics Division (HYD) was formed in 1926, with Prof. Lewis F. Moody as a prime mover in its creation. Its first separate division conference was held in 1961. Prof. Robert C. Dean led the effort to change its name to the Fluids Engineering Division (FED) which succeeded in 1963. A restructuring occurred in 1989-1990, but the name remained. There was also a Committee on General Hydraulics which existed between 1938-1940, led by Murrough P. O'Brien, and later a Fluid Mechanics Committee, formed in 1957 by Dean, now called the Fluid Mechanics Technical Committee (FMTC). The Journal of Fluids Engineering was founded in 1973, also under Dean, its first editor. I've pulled this information from the article by Cooper et al. (2016).
We must turn now to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), founded much earlier (1852). Its Hydraulics Division was formed in 1938, the 12th such division formed. Fred C. Scobey of USDA was the prime mover of that effort. Its first specialty conference was held in 1950, and its Journal of the Hydraulics Division began in 1956. In 1982, the journal was renamed the Journal of Hydraulic Engineering. A 50th anniversary book for the division was published in 1990, but I have not been able to see a copy. My information is drawn mainly from Petersen (2002). It is unclear to me from the society's website whether the Hydraulics Division, or its specialty conference, still exist, but the journal definitely does.
The American Physical Society (APS, founded in 1899) created its Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) in 1947, its fourth division. Raymond J. Seeger was the prime mover of this effort. The first annual meeting was held in 1949, though sessions were sponsored at the 1948 APS annual meeting, including a joint meeting with the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences (a predecessor to the AIAA, about which more later). However the APS did not start a special fluid mechanics journal until 2015, Physical Review Fluids. Prior to that, the DFD collaborated with the American Institute of Physics (AIP) in the publication of Physics of Fluids, founded in 1959 under Francois Frenkiel. Some historical information on the DFD can be found in this piece by Russell Donnelly.
For the remainder of this post, information is drawn from Wikipedia and/or the websites of the professional societies themselves.
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) was formed in 1963 from the merger of the Institute of the Aerospace Sciences (founded in 1932 under the name Institute of Aeronautical Sciences, mentioned above), and the American Rocket Society, founded in 1930. At one time the AIAA sponsored a Fluid Dynamics Conference, but it does not seem to exist anymore. They do have a Fluid Dynamics Technical Committee, within their Aerospace Sciences Group. I do not know when it was formed, but it can't be older than AIAA itself. AIAA does not seem to have a specialty journal for fluids; rather fluids papers appear across the constellation of their journals on other subjects.
The same about the journals can be said about the American Institute for Chemical Engineering (AIChE), founded in 1908. They don't seem to have a specialty journal, conference, or division or forum dedicated to fluids, as the topic basically pervades much of the discipline, as it does for AIAA.
Indeed, many professional societies in science, mathematics, engineering, and the Earth, environmental, and planetary sciences make use of fluid mechanics, and many of their practitioners carry out fundamental research in fluids. Fundamental and applied topics in fluids research pervade across multiple technical areas within these professions, so often they do not have a fluids-specific unit, journal, or conference. Examples include the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), the American Geophysical Union (AGU), and the American Meteorological Society (AMS). However, the AMS does host an annual Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics (AOFD) conference. It has not always been annual (the most recent, just held earlier this week, was called the 25th, but I coauthored a presentation given at the 13th in 2001), so I'm not sure when it began. I have seen an announcement for the 2d AMS Atmospheric and Oceanic Waves and Stability conference in 1978, so perhaps this is the same conference under a different historical name?
So to conclude, the major U.S. professional society units that specialize in fluid mechanics appear to be the ASME's FED and the APS's DFD, both of which sponsor annual conferences and journals (JFE and PR Fluids). The AIAA has a technical committee but no special conference or journal. The AMS also has their AOFD annual conference, and the ASCE maintains the Journal of Hydraulic Engineering. To these we can add the AIP's Physics of Fluids journal.
The surviving units, ASME FED and APS DFD, were created in 1926 and 1947 respectively, so indeed FED is the oldest that I know of in the United States. The ASCE has the oldest journal discussed here, however, since JHE dates to 1956, with PoF following in 1959, JFE in 1973, and PR Fluids in 2015. Finally the oldest surviving conference discussed here is DFD's, starting in 1949, followed by FEDSM in 1961, and AOFD possibly dating to sometime in the 1970s.
References
P. Cooper, C. S. Martin, and T. J. O'Hearn, 2016: History of the Fluids Engineering Division. Journal of Fluids Engineering, 138: 100801.
M. S. Petersen, 2002: Summary of the Hydraulics Division- ASCE (1938-1988). Environmental and Water Resources History, ed. by J. R. Rogers and A. J. Fredrich, Sessions at ASCE Civil Engineering Conference and Exposition, Nov. 3-7, 2002, Washington, DC., pp. 193-194.
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