Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

SAMUEL WESLEY STRATTON 59
TIlE EVENING MONDAY, MARCH 11, 1901
CORRECT MEASURES
Function of the New Bureau of
LABORATORY TO BE ERECTED
-
Prof. Stratton, the Director, De-
tails Need of Establishment.
A HANDICAP REMOVED
A new bureau of the government, author-
ized by the last Congress. will be established
in this city in the near future and will give
employment to a number of persons. It Is
to be known as the national bureau of
standards and is to be under the control of
the Treasury Department A separate build-
leg for a laboratory, to cost not to exceed
is to be erected on a site be pur-
chased at a cost of
Mr. W. Stratton of ChIcago has
been appointed by the President to be chief
of the bureau at an salary of $3,000.
Prof. Strattoo is to have the following as-
DIreet.r Sirait.a.
sistants, to be appoInted by the Secretary
of the Trearury: One physicist, at an an-
nual salary of $3,TitiI; one chemist, at $3,500;
two assistant physicists or chemists, each
at an annual salary of one laboratory
assistant, at $1,100; one laboratory assistant,
at one secretary, at one clerk,
at $19151; one messenger, at $1; one en-
One of the first newspaper notices of the new Bureau in the Federal Establishment
appeared in the Washington Evening Star. A half page feature in the Sunday Wash-
ington Times of August 23, 1903, included a picture of Secretary Cortelyou of the
Department of Commerce and Labor laying the cornerstone of the main (South) build'
ing the day before, and described the ceremony as "a memorable event in the history
of the country."
the Bureau would need, visit the more important laboratories here and abroad
to see their construction, equipment, and the work they were doing, and set
in motion, in the present Office, some of the more important lines of investi-
gation to be pursued by the new Bureau.
It is not known in what order these tasks were taken up, but it seems
probable that Stratton first secured additional laboratory space, in the Butler
building, adjacent to the Coast Survey, hired a typist, which the Office had
formerly lacked, and set the staff to work planning an expanded program.
This included setting up an investigation of photometric measurements;
developing means for testing high and low temperature instruments, clinical