American Society of Mechanical Engineers
professional association
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via "continuing education, training and professional development, codes and standards, research, conferences and publications, government relations, and other forms of outreach." ASME is thus an engineering society, a standards organization, a research and development organization, an advocacy organization, a provider of training and education, and a nonprofit organization. Founded as an engineering society focused on mechanical engineering in North America, ASME is today multidisciplinary and global.
ASME has over 85,000 members in more than 135 countries worldwide.
ASME was founded in 1880 in response to numerous steam boiler pressure vessel failures by Alexander Lyman Holley, Henry Rossiter Worthington, John Edison Sweet and Matthias N. Forney, with Robert Henry Thurston as the society's founding president. Known for setting codes and standards for mechanical devices, ASME conducts one of the world's largest technical publishing operations. It holds numerous technical conferences and hundreds of professional development courses each year and sponsors numerous outreach and educational programs.
Kate Gleason and Lydia Weld were the first two women members, both by 1920.
Codes and standards
ASME is one of the oldest standards-developing organizations in America. It produces approximately 600 codes and standards covering many technical areas, such as fasteners, plumbing fixtures, elevators, pipelines, and power plant systems and components. ASME's standards are developed by committees of subject matter experts using an open, consensus-based process.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q466950. VIAF identifies the subject as 124158527. The Library of Congress control number is n80081647. 2 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1880 and 1920.
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This entry incorporates text from “American Society of Mechanical Engineers” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.