ABSTRACT
The U.S. accounting profession emerged during the last quarter of the 19th century, the first major accounting body being the American Association of Public Accountants, the lineal predecessor of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, established in 1887.2 New York State passed the first law, in 1896, to recognize the qualification known as Certified Public Accountant, which, as Carey writes, “marked the beginning of an accredited profession of accounting in the United States” (Carey 1969, 44).
