On May 16, 1916, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) hosted what is recognized as the first virtual meeting, connecting over 5,000 attendees from eight cities across four U.S. time zones. This event marked a groundbreaking use of telephone technology, which had been recently expanded for long-distance communication. Using 150,000 telephone poles and 5,000 switches, the meeting was made possible by a span of 6,500 kilometers (approximately 4,000 miles) of telephone lines that connected cities including New York, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco.
The AIEE’s president, John J. Carty, led the event from New York City, while local chairpersons in each city managed their own proceedings. Despite the limitations of the technology, such as no video (common in modern virtual meetings), each location was able to participate in a shared experience by listening in through telephone receivers at their seats. The meeting began with roll calls from each city, with attendance ranging from 40 people in Denver to over 1,000 in New York.
The event was heralded as a technological triumph, covered widely by the press, with outlets like the Atlanta Constitution calling it “a feat never before accomplished in the history of the world.” The Philadelphia Evening Ledger provided further context, noting that this was the first time that telephone lines had spanned the length of the U.S. in this manner, the technology having only recently facilitated the first transcontinental call in 1915.
In addition to the technical achievements, the meeting had notable cultural elements. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sent a congratulatory telegram, and figures such as Alexander Graham Bell & Thomas Watson (the first person to hear words spoken over the telephone) offered remarks. The meeting also featured “breakout sessions,” where each city had the opportunity to host local speakers. Topics ranged from the harnessing of electricity to concerns over the limitations of resources during World War I.
By the end of the event, cities sent their greetings through the telephone lines, contributing to a collective expression of engineering pride. The significance of the meeting was not only in its technical execution but also in the sense of unity and progress it symbolized in a time before video conferencing and global connectivity became the norm.
