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

THE BUREAU TURNS TO WAR RESEARCH 167
the spring of 1917; and in 1918 the Radio Laboratory and its towers, ad-
jacent to East building, was completed.17
Of the hundred-million-dollar National Security and Defense Fund
voted by Congress to President Wilson in 1917, a little over $2 million was
allotted to the Bureau in 1918—19 for the construction and equipping of two
large "war-emergency" laboratories and two lesser structures. Northwest
building, centralizing metallurgical research, the gage work, and military
equipment and military instrument research, was completed in March 1918,
and an imposing Industrial building, almost three times larger than any
previous Bureau structure, was finally completed early in 1920.18
The first occupants of the Industrial building, moving in late in
1918, were the structural materials laboratories, crowded out of West build-
ing, and Dr. Stratton's paper and rubber mills. Into a new Kiln building,
back of Industrial, went an enlarged optical glass plant, as well as the cement
and ceramic kilns brought from the Pittsburgh laboratory where the Army
had commandeered much of the Bureau space for its own Use. The fourth
structure was an Altitude Laboratory (later called the Dynamometer Lab-
oratory), in which high-altitude conditions could be simulated for testing
airplane engine performance under flight conditions.19
While the President's emergency fund provided much needed build-
ings for the Bureau, special wartime funds for military research, amounting
to $487,000 in 1917—18 and $622,000 in 1918—19, made it possible for the
Bureau to acquire scientists it could never otherwise have afforded.20 The
scientific, technical, and administrative staff rose from 517 in 1917 to
1,117 a year later, some of the newcomers advancing to key positions and
11 For construction details of these buildings, see NBS Blue Folder Boxes 77—79, 81.
Among minor structures built following the influx of warworkers were the Standard
Store and gas station, erected at the entrance to the Bureau grounds and operated by
staff members in their off hours. Since the nearest stores were almost a mile away in
either direction, the Bureau shop was a convenience, offering fruit, vegetables, canned
goods and other groceries, tobacco and sundries, as well as gas and oil, at cost. By
1925 commercial enterprises began to close in, and that spring the store and gas station
were closed. Letter, GKB to H. W. Bearce, Dec. 1, 1925 (NBS Box 108, AG).
NBS Blue Folder Boxes 82—84.
19 For the altitude laboratory, see letter, Secretary of Commerce tà President Wilson,
Aug. 6, 1918 (NBS Box 5, FPG).
Approximately half the funds were special military appropriations by Congress to the
Bureau, the other half transferred funds from Army and Navy appropriations. See
app. F.