The history of the Austro-American Society is intertwined the histories of various cooperative cultural, academic, business and friendship organizations on both sides of the Atlantic since the beginning of diplomatic relations between Austria and the United States in 1838 under U.S. President Andrew Jackson and Austrian Emperor Franz I.
However, the Austro-American Society of today is distinctly traceable to post-WWII Vienna and strategic foreign policies of the U.S.

In the beginning, the Austro-American Society served to coordinate distribution of much-needed CARE packages to the war-weary and hungry citizens who had lost much of their means of food production. Dr. Kauders led the Austro-American Society only for about eight months before his death, but what he began was already beginning to grow and expand. The main seat of the Austro-American Society remains in Vienna, but today there are regional chapters in Upper Austria, Carinthia, Salzburg, Styria and, of course, ours in Tirol.

First known as U.S. Information Centers, the America Houses were an important third prong in the fork of post-war strategic diplomacy and the most directly related to the expansion of the Austro-American Society from Vienna into regional branches, including Tirol.

After the end of Allied occupation and the enactment of Austria’s State Treaty in 1955, the America House Innsbruck was officially closed. The AASTirol remained, assuming the responsibilities and some of the library, while most of the library holdings were gifted by the U.S. to the University of Innsbruck for the founding of the Department of American Studies.  The AASTirol continued the cultural exchange and promotion of U.S.-Austrian social, educational and business ties, moving to space in the Palais Trapp, Maria-Theresienstraße 38 and then to Seilergasse 13 in the Old Town.